A Media Development Day is to be declared in Ghana to mark a milestone in the quest to establish a development organ under the Media-Corporate Response Initiative (M-CRI), a collaborative project to promote business advocacy for rural economic development. Patron of the Initiative, Daasebre Professor Oti Boateng, the Omanhene of the New Juaben Traditional Area, has proposed 25th October as a media development stock-taking day. He is expected to launch the M-CRI project next Tuesday, under the auspices of the DANIDA-USAID-EU sponsored Business Sector Advocacy (BUSAC). With the adoption of the initiative, the M-CRI shall strengthen the media’s engagement with BUSAC Fund to incorporate business advocacy as an integral part of the media’s development role, and to build the institutional capacity of the M-CRI to respond to the mandate of corporate media and media involvement in the Local Government System. According to Daasebre Oti Boateng, “in the wake of the global financial crisis and the general global development stalemate, Africa remains at the receiving end of this development crisis pendulum. In the current global state of despondency, the fundamental option for Africa is to engender local planning in global context, and not desperately wailing and waiting for solutions to be discovered elsewhere for a bail-out to Africa”. He is convinced that a development-oriented media is crucial to anchor a new development model to engineer solutions for Africa’s development. He hinted the launching of the Initiative shall be used to unveil a new model in Micro-Finance that would become an important identity of Ghanaian scholarship to be promoted as a flagship global micro-finance model. Daasebre Oti Boateng said the Media-Corporate Response Initiative will partner the Azongo Development Planning Consult to pioneer a development model for media agenda setting role in Africa. The launching of the M-CRI is also intended to formally commission the Model Building Research in 4 districts within the Southern and Northern sectors of the country. Areas include the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly, Twifo Hemang Lower Denkyira District, Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and Central Gonja District. The research is to establish a District Micro-Finance Regime to promote enterprise development, and to provide a template to determine the coordinated role of the District Assembly, SMEs and Micro-Finance Institutions in promoting local economic development.