The World Bank Country Director, Mats Karlsson has asked all Ghanaian citizens to assume an attitude that is oriented towards speeding up the development process of the country. “The opportunity for a faster development is here but there is the need to exhibit an attitude conducive to greater economic development,” he said. He questioned why the country was not moving faster and said; “All the elements are there- financing, political dialogue, the knowledge. Why can’t we make them gel even more?” According to the Daily Graphic which reported an interview Mr Karlsson, he explained attitude to be doing what we say we are going to do”, adding that the issue was also about “moving on quickly with what we know is the best for us”. For example, he said, the low rains was only a trigger of the current energy crisis whereas the actual reason was sluggishness to energy reforms that had long been envisioned. “But this is solvable, so let’s solve it,” he added. The World Bank country chief said to attain the target of a middle- income status, speed was part of the solution and the country would not achieve much with the slow implementation of policies, projects and programmes. He said people in leadership positions, particularly at the grassroots, should not be afraid to make mistakes which always resulted in always waiting for decisions from the top. He added that people at the grassroots must initiate moves and be prepared to learn from their wrongs. “Local leadership should be paramount. District Chief Executives and opinion leaders should have attitudinal change that would not accept slow performance,” he stated. Mr Karlsson agreed with the Governor of the Bank of Ghana that the economy in 2006 had performed well and was also ahead of most of its peers, especially in the West African sub-region but said there were tall and challenging bench marks that the country would set for itself. He acknowledged that the year recorded some results that were improvements over previous years of consistent stability. These included downward trends in inflation and interest rates higher growth rate, higher cocoa production and non traditional exports as well as improvements in the basic school enrolment and gender parity. Mr Karlsson was not very impressed with achievements in the health sector and outlined three areas-nutrition, sanitation and early childhood development as key areas to tackle. “Nutrition levels are very low in a country that can grow virtually everything and this is an attitudinal issue rather than one of income,” he observed. Source: Daily Graphic