CHRGJ Faculty Director and Co-Chair, Professor Philip Alston is in Ghana this week with his NYU-based advisor Anna Bulman on an official visit in Alston’s capacity as United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
Following his first day, Alston shared on Twitter that he had held a series of “productive meetings with key UN agencies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and some of the country’s leading economists and social policy analysts.” After his second day, he shared information and photographs of head porters (kayayei) in Accra, who come from poor, rural areas to earn money to take home to their children but make so little they are unable to save or afford shelter, sleeping in the open streets.
They have no shelter and sleep on the open streets at night. When it rains, the try find a structure to stand under. If there is no room, they hold plastic bags over their heads. pic.twitter.com/P5ElSshrKP
— Philip Alston (@Alston_UNSR) April 11, 2018
In advance of the visit, Alston solicited submissions from individuals who work on or experience poverty in Ghana, NGOs, activists, and scholars to provide input for the preparation of his visit. These can be read here.
Alston also put out a call to the broader Ghanaian public on Facebook to share recommendations on challenges he might examine during the official visit. Issues that have been raised through this call to date include:
You can follow Alston’s visit and offer feedback via his Twitter and Facebook accounts, using #GhanaPoverty.
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