{"id":349458,"date":"2017-08-30T16:00:55","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T16:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=349458"},"modified":"2017-11-10T12:35:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T12:35:55","slug":"imani-named-finalist-for-2017-templeton-freedom-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/08\/imani-named-finalist-for-2017-templeton-freedom-award\/","title":{"rendered":"IMANI named finalist for 2017 Templeton Freedom Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
Unrealistic campaign promises are a staple in elections across the world, and nowhere has that been truer than in Ghana \u2013 until now. Last year, Accra-based IMANI Center for Policy and Education launched its 2016 IMANIFesto Campaign, which estimated the costs and rated the feasibility of all campaign promises. For the first time this forced the country\u2019s political parties to justify many of their unrealistic plans to the public.<\/p>\n
Each IMANIFesto publication was followed by a formal press conference to discuss the findings of its work with political parties vying for elections, which resulted in these parties reforming their promises. Supplementing this initiative was near-constant attention in the national media and IMANI\u2019s savvy use of social media, which stirred the public debate by reaching over 2 million Facebook users and nearly 1 million Twitter users from August to November of 2016.<\/p>\n
This prompted many political party officials to take to those platforms to defend against challenges from the public. IMANI\u2019s engagement of millions of Ghanaians has reminded the people of Ghana that the power to hold the government accountable is in their hands and transformed the 2016 Parliamentary Election into one based not on political promises but on policy issues. IMANIFesto\u2019s success has even inspired other think tanks in West Africa to visit IMANI in hopes of replicating the project in their respective countries.<\/p>\n
“IMANIFesto became a reference point that benchmarked political promises along quantifiable metrics that the common man could relate to and is now the blueprint for political communication along the lines of policy promises,\u201d said Franklin Cudjoe, founding president and CEO of IMANI. \u201cIt is exciting to know that IMANIFesto will become the most potent tool to help narrow the gap between political wish lists and reality in Ghana and anywhere we export the idea to \u2013 primarily the rest of Africa and anywhere else politicians evade scrutiny.”<\/p>\n
Demystifying Ghana\u2019s Political Atmosphere<\/strong><\/p>\n
IMANI tried to rein in the rampant promise making of those campaigning for public office in Ghana by introducing a three-pronged quantitative assessment framework allowing Ghanaian citizens to determine the viability of each campaign promise made by political parties. Those three prongs were financial viability of each promise, its potential impact on private sector development, and overall policy implications of its implementation.<\/p>\n