By Hafsa Obeng/Lawrencia Mensah
Accra, Aug.16, GNA – The Ministry of Tourism, in collaboration with the Global Citizen and BBnZ, has launched the 2022 Global Citizen Festival in Ghana to help the world advance towards equality, development, and zero poverty.
The festival, which is designed to focus on the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, is scheduled for September 24.
Mr Hugh Evans, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), The Global Citizen, said his passion about the eradication of extreme poverty led him to form Global Citizen.
He said poverty was man-made and must be overcome and eradicated by human beings, particularly through the Global Citizen Festival.
The CEO said tickets to the festival would not be sold but earned through actions and petitions against extreme poverty, emphasising that to alleviate inequality and its underlying causes, citizen engagement was required.
“The campaign’s call to action is to address the injustice of the fact that COVID-19 has pushed 100 million people into extreme poverty in the last 24 months,” he said.
Mr Evans said the 65th anniversary of Ghana’s independence and the 20th anniversary of the African Union both fell in 2022, providing more chances for cooperation to realize the festival’s objectives.
He said the campaign was being held in Ghana because “Ghana is known to be a symbol of African excellence, peace, democracy and hope for the entire world.”
Mr Mark Okraku-Mantey, the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, expressed excitement about the fact that the Global Citizen would campaign through music.
He said while tourism was a great marketing tool that infused money into every culture in every country, music is an effective instrument utilized to promote it.
He urged Ghanaians, especially women and girls, to participate actively and earn a ticket to the festival ahead.
Mrs Bosoma Saint John, Advisory Board Member, said since women constituted more than half of the world’s population, it was crucial to empower them because when one woman succeeds, the entire society benefits.
She said a country’s GDP was founded on half of its population, therefore, empowering girls and women in society would have a positive impact on both the economy’s stability and its growth.
She commended the Global Citizen team for making it their mission to empower girls and women as a way of eradicating extreme poverty.
The Global Citizen Festival is a celebration of music and social change that brings together artists, activists, world leaders, and Global Citizens to demand urgent change on the world’s biggest issues.
The Global Citizen Festival stage offers a platform for world leaders, business leaders, and philanthropists to make commitments in the goal to end extreme poverty and inspire genuine change in addition to serving as a venue for performance by some of the biggest artists across the world.
Some Ghanaian artistes to perform at the event include Stonebwoy, Gyakie, Usher, Sarkodie, Stormzy among others.
World Leaders supporting the campaign include Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission; Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados; Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana; Hakainde Hilchilema, President of Zambia; and Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations.
GNA