Private Sector Recognition1

PEF has gained national prominence as the private sector advocate by participating in key national advisory, policy planning, policy formulation, and monitoring committee. PEF’s advocacy activities have culminated in the recognition by government of the need to set up the Ministry for Private Sector Development which has currently been merged with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Presidential Special Initiatives, to provide a focal point for coordinating and harmonizing government’s initiatives and policies geared towards the private sector. The private sector has thus gained recognition as an important factor in the country’s developmental agenda.

African Peer Review Mechanism [APRM]

As part of the Government of Ghana’s quest to enhance the quality of governance in the country, the National APRM Governing Council, in August 2004, tasked four independent technical review teams to prepare Ghana’s report under each of the four thematic areas: Corporate Governance; Economic Governance and Management; Democracy and Political Governance and; Social and Economic Development.

The Private Enterprise Foundation was one of the think-tanks/ technical research institutes tasked with one of these thematic areas – The Corporate Governance Section.

This project was successfully carried out by PEF. The Foundation’s activities cut across how companies are run and how their activities affect consumers, communities, employees, Boards of Directors etc. The Foundation merged views, observations, comments, and perceptions from stakeholders.

The report gathered served as a guide to the secretariat in drafting a National Program of Action (POA) for the respective implementing agencies to undertake those recommendations.

The Foundation is still one the technical teams tasked with the monitoring and evaluation of the progress of work done by the respective implementing agencies. This can be attributed to the success of the project undertaken in 2004 induced

National Consensus

In the polarized political atmosphere of the 1990s, PEF helped foster a consensus-building culture in the country by organizing the North Carolina Conference for a broad cross-section of the Ghanaian polity, including government leaders, opposition members in parliament, business leaders, academia, and civil society representatives, to discuss the agenda for sustainable development in Ghana. The National Economic Forum followed this conference in September 1997, to continue with the outlines developed in North Carolina and to pick the priority issues for discussion. In 2001, 2002 and 2003, the Government of Ghana organised a National Economic Dialogue (NED) to continue with the consensus-building process in order to accelerate National Economic growth and development.

Establishment Of Energy Foundation

PEF, in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy, US Department of Energy, and USAID, set up the Energy Foundation. PEF, collaborating with the World Bank and School On-line, also established the World Links for Development Programme in Ghana.

The former contributes to the promotion of energy efficiency policies and practices and the latter was engaged in programmes involving the upgrading of computer training and information technology in selected secondary schools in Ghana.

Workplace HIV/Aids Project

With financial support from the World Health Organization (WHO), PEF undertook a study of the behaviours of the selected SMEs towards HIV/AIDS in the Western and Greater Accra Regions. 40 SMEs were sampled for the study.

The Royal Netherlands Embassy under the Small Grants Project support PEF to implement advocacy and sensitisation programmes in 20 selected SMEs in Accra and Kumasi. The programmes implemented under this project include policy development and sensitisation seminars, peer education programmes, promotion of Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) and Media Advocacy.

With funding from the World Bank and technical support from the National AIDS Control Programme, PEF and other implementing Partners, implemented workplace HIV/AIDS programme; the Treatment Acceleration Project (TAP). TAP is being implemented in 100 companies in four regions: Greater Accra, Ashanti, Western and Eastern. TAP has three main objectives:

• Scaling up comprehensive treatment for HIV/AIDS infected persons including care and support
• Learning through research to find out what works and what does not work
• Strengthen institutional capacity for HIV/AIDS care, treatment and support

Training

Under its Business Promotion Programme, PEF has so far facilitated the training of over 1000 entrepreneurs in accounting, marketing and environmental management in order to improve the management efficiency of the SME sector.