The Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) has opened it third Africa Resource Centre in Accra, Ghana, to provide research support to the West African region on critical economic policy issues. The advocacy group with its headquarters in Jaipur had earlier opened two centres in Lusaka (Zambia) and Nairobi (Kenya).
Ghana Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister Hanna Tetteh has welcomed the move saying the organisation would help connect grassroots to the policy-makers through applied research, advocacy and networking. “We value this experience and look forward to more cooperation,” he said.
CUTS Centre for Consumer Action, Research and Training (CUTS CART) programme coordinator Deepak Saxena said here on Tuesday that the new centre would strengthen the position of CUTS in Sub-Saharan Africa as a think and action tank relying on evidence-based policy advocacy to address trade and development issues through a bottom-up approach.
Like the other two African centres, CUTS Accra will be a locally registered Ghanaian not-for-profit outfit doing research and public outreach and engaging in capacity building activities. The board of CUTS Accra, headed by former judge Samuel Kofi Date-Bah, comprises experienced Ghanaian experts and professionals.
Mr. Saxena said the CUTS, through the new centre, would strengthen its approach of promoting “South-South cooperation” on trade and development and strengthen long-term capacity of both non-State and State actors in the region to address socio-economic and developmental challenges.
CUTS is perhaps one of the few “southern” organisations to have a “voice” office in Geneva, where it has been running successfully since 2008. It also has an office in Hanoi, Vietnam, that became operational in 2005, covering the South-East Asian region.
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