Innovations for Poverty (IPA) Ghana and the Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) at the University of Cape Coast have signed an MOU to promote collaborative research, help with policy briefings through research dissemination and engage in activities that involve outreaches and training.
The Country Director of Innovations for Poverty Action Ghana, Salifu Amadu who signed the MoU on behalf of his outfit revealed that the agreement will also provide both graduates and postgraduates from the institute with internship opportunities where they can be equipped with skills to help them achieve their career goals.
Giving details of the MOU he explained that “within the MOU we have four areas of collaboration, one is on the general research project collaboration where between IPA and IEPA will collaborate on policy-relevant research. Second, there are also opportunities for internship, graduates or post-graduate students within IEPA will be able to intern at IPA and learn practical experience on what they will do out of school.”
He added that through the partnership his outfit using education as a tool can continue to work effectively to achieve its vision of providing effective solutions to global poverty problems.
“Within education at IPA, our main aim is to discover and promote effective solutions for global poverty problems and we have identified IEPA as a key partner to help move this vision of IPA.”
This he said gives IPA the opportunity to reach out to IEPA and develop policy-relevant research which will inform the government on what works and what does not work.
According to him, “in the end, if you know what works and what does not work it helps the government to be able to implement policies which help in decision making which will go a long way to reduce in poverty in the country.”
Signing the agreement on behalf of IEPA, the Director-General, Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom also indicated that, the collaboration between the two institutions is in the right direction since the achievement of their independent goals will result in the promotion of Ghana’s development.
“IPA is committed to issues of research, issues of policy, and issues of poverty alleviation. IEPA at the University of Cape Coast, we are also committed to issues of research, education, educational planning, educational leadership, and school improvement. Thus, coming together we believe that the two institutions have a lot of synergies together and coming together to support our individual agenda for national development, we believe it is the way to go.”
He said that currently, they are pushing for more collaborative research where they talk about interdisciplinary research. He explains that once this is done both parties will be serving their individual mandates as individual institutions and also serve Ghana, West Africa, Africa, and the world at large.
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Source: Rosemond Asmah & Victoria Entsuah-Mensah/ATLFMNEWS
