R2P research ends in Ghana

  • Category: trans4orm news
  • Published on Thursday, 12 May 2016 17:00
  • Written by Super User
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A new research on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has revealed that nearly 60% of people living in Ghana have no idea what the UN concept is all about and what the state is mandated to do in implementing the UN norm. Presenting the research background, rational, scope and methodology, Mr Vincent Azumah, Founder of Trans4orm Network Ghana (TNG) and also the Regional Coordinator, Monitoring and Evaluation of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), said the research adopted both qualitative and quantitative research designs, purposive and snowball sampling technique and collected data from the Volta, Greater Accra, Northern, Ashanti and Western regions of Ghana. Trans4orm Network Ghana’s Project Officer, Ms Enyonam Bonsu collected data in the Greater Accra region as part of the organisation’s support to the process. The research, conducted by WANEP with the financial support from the government of Denmark, is focused on the operationalization of R2P in Ghana, specifically to examine the state of readiness of various actors in Ghana and other ECOWAS member states in the implementation of R2P. The research revealed that 57.10% of Ghanaians are not aware of R2P. The research also showed that three out of 10 institutions whose work is heavily related to R2P, were not aware of the R2P concept. The R2P is an international security and human rights norm to address the international community’s failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The study, “Assessing National and Regional Capacities for Implementing R2P in Ghana and West Africa” is a two-tier research that studied the general public on one hand and then specifically identified state and non-state institutions and organisations that are supposed to be working to actualise R2P. The study also revealed that 96.1% of respondents think there is no justification for war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide. A small number of 3.75% however think those crimes are okay. Respondents’ perceptions on possibility of genocide occurring in Ghana presented very interesting findings. 47.7% indicated that it is unlikely, 17.7% said it is possible, 12.6% said they did not know if it was possible and 22% said it depends. On the issue of whether abuse on the basis of sexual orientation was justified, 70% responded by saying no, 15% said yes, 11% said it depends and 4% said they did not know. With respect to the question on whether or not abuse on the basis of political affiliation was justified, 83.3% said no, 3.8% said yes, 5.3% said I don’t know whist the remaining 7.6% said it depends. Responses received from respondents on the question on whether or not abuse on the basis of religion/ religious beliefs/ religious practice was ever justified were as follows; 82.80%- No, 10.50%- yes and 6.5% I don’t know.