A lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana Professor Ransford Gyampo has said the country’s success in the COVID-19 fight will only be possible if policy makers are not “ignorant of their target population.”
According to the Political Science lecturer, the fight against COVID-19 must first begin with the policy makers’ awareness of the people who make up the citizenry.
In a statement issued by the Political Science lecturer on Friday, 17 July 2020, Mr Gyampo said: “Ghana’s quest to tackle COVID-19 must first begin with a sophisticated awareness of the caliber of people who constitute the population of the nation.
He also noted that: “One of the several distinguishing features of developing countries all over the world is that they have a huge chunk of their population being ignorant.”
Thus, “failure on the part of policy makers to appreciate this would always be a recipe for policy failure, as the ignorant ones will rise to oppose the very intervention aimed at making them safe.”
The Political Science lecturer therefore urged policy makers “not to be ignorant of the ignorance of their target population.
Prof Gyampo further made some recommendations that tackle the problem of ignorance among the citizenry to ensure victory in the fight against the deadly virus and general policy success in a research on “African Development.”
Meanwhile, the country has recorded 264 new COVID-19 cases taking the national caseload to 26,125 with 22,270 recoveries.
The death toll remains 139 with 3, 716 active cases as at Thursday, 16 July 2020.