PPAG VISION STATEMENT
Dr. Joseph Amuzu, Executive Director, PPAG
Mr. President, Council Members, Ladies and Gentlemen
I thank God for this day. In the 1990s there about, as a young and inexperienced public health physician in Kumasi, I dreamt of leading this organization even at that time. Since then, I have been following the progress of PPAG till today. I again came in close contact with PPAG when I was the HIV Team Leader at USAID in 1998 and quite recently our paths crossed as the Director of Policy and Planning at the Ghana AIDS Commission.
I thank the President and Council that we have reached this point today as I am being introduced as the new Executive Director of PPAG. I have high hopes for this organization and I have high hopes for myself.
Let me begin my vision statement by saying;
1. I share the Vision of the Organization: That Ghana should become a country in which the youth are well informed about Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and confidently exercise their right of choice of SRH services without fear and /or any obstacle from any sector of the society.
2. I share in our Mission and Values: The Association shall provide the youth with the knowledge and means of exercising their basic rights to decide freely and responsibly on their SRH as a means of improving the quality of life of Ghanaians.
3. The values
• Ownership and Leadership of the Governing Council and Management Team
• Team Spirit
• Youth Friendliness
• Freedom of Choice and Expression
• Integrity
• Accountability
• Transparency
• Gender Sensitive
• Effective and Strategic Partnership
• Community Participation
MY OWN VISION
I would uphold and promote these values in the entire organization to ensure that the vision of PPAG – the BEST in the industry is achieved. How do we achieve this?
1. Uphold the image of the company at all times
By representing the company very well at all fora, ensuring our decency; increase contribution to international and national debates and discussions; defending our values, going the extra mile by being proactive in terms of delivering quality to the people of Ghana, particularly young boys and girls ; elevating the position and role of young people in the organization –ensuring that youth participation is meaningful, result oriented and makes the desired impact; awaken the organization’s position and responsibilities to its constituencies and ensure that we are recognized for our role and contribution to Ghana’s attainment of the MDGs, national population and other health goals.
2. Rebuild and rebrand
To achieve a good image of PPAG will require the urgent need to rebuild and rebrand the organization to respond to and reflect the changing donor requirements and demand such as accountability, results –focused, dynamism, progressiveness, sustainability etc; improving the service delivery function of the organization by ensuring that the clinics and outreach outlets are well positioned to function actively.
3. Strengthening leadership and management structures
There is the urgent need to strengthen leadership and management structures, functions and productivity and building new partnerships, strengthening existing ones and reviving broken ones.
Volunteer-staff relationship needs to be improved; we need to work with our Volunteers to attract more and quality Volunteers to support the organization; ensuring respect for Council Members; Maintaining at all times cordial relationship with Council; better communication ; adequate and prompt preparations from Council meeting ; holding regular Council meetings and being accountable to Council. And finally, working to re-position PPAG as the first priority of donors, clients and key stakeholders.
4. Inspire and improve upon discipline and fairness
5. Restructuring
The whole organization will need a major restructuring to make it a learning organization and more efficient. A learning organization means that we should have an organization which is able to adopt and compete at low cost through learning; that we work in an environment that promotes further development of knowledge and skill of employees; consolidating PPAG’s position within IPPF as one of the strongest Learning Centres of Excellence. We need to work smart.
6. Strategic Planning
At the heart of the restructuring will be the development of a strategic plan. A new strategic plan that will look at performance management; define a new organizational structure that will help us work for results; a review of the pay system with the aim of ensuring quality, fairness and rewards for hard work and result; to be competitive and attract more talents. Management and staff remuneration has to improve so as to retain staff. In this regard, greater attention will be paid to resource mobilization and performance management.
As part of the process, I hope to work with Council to restore the three Directorates which existed some years ago and to create a new Business Development Unit which will drive the resource mobilization aspect of the organization.
Finally, I proposed a retreat with my management team as early as possible to have frank discussion on how we work together, to get by-in for my vision and thrash out any existing challenges.
