Kofi Ahovi

By Kofi Ahovi Millions of women, in developing countries, breathe in harmful smoke daily while cooking their families’ meals and walking far distances to secure fuel in order to cook those meals. Exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fires, the primary means of cooking for nearly three billion people in the developing world, causes nearly four million premature deaths each year, including 18,000 annual deaths in Ghana, and millions more suffer from cancer, pneumonia, heart and lung disease, blindness, and burns. More than 70 percent of Ghana’s population relies on solid fuels for their household cooking needs. Reliance on biomass increases pressure on local natural resources, leading to environmental degradation, and forces women and children to spend many hours each week collecting wood. Inefficient cooking also contributes to climate change through emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, and aerosols such as black carbon. Exposure to sm...

News Update MTN Ghana, the largest telecommunication service provider in the country, is treating its customers to another exclusive cinema experience at the Silverbird cinemas in Accra on Thursday February 15th, 2018. For the very first time, some selected subscribers of MTN will have the privilege to attend the prescreening of the much-anticipated block buster movie, ‘Black Panther’. ‘Black Panther’ is cased in a fictional African Town called Wakanda, whose people are most unassuming but highly tech-savvy. The movie was produced in Marvel studio’s second installment of the movie Avengers. T’Challa played by Chadwick Boseman, is the son of the dead king who returns home to take up the responsibility of kingship. But his ascension to the throne is threatened by two enemies who collaborate to destroy the kingdom. In order to avert a world war, T’Challa has to become the Black Panther, and team up with CIA agent Everett Ross and members of the Dora Milaje-Wakanda's all-female s...

Nestle Ghana Limited has commenced the third edition of one of its flagship programmes dubbed “The Nido Nutrition Day”. This forms part of activities to mark its 60 years anniversary celebrations in Ghana. The 2017 edition commenced last Saturday at the Sowa Din Memorial School complex near Ashale Botwe in Accra. The programme seeks to educate mothers and caregivers on the importance of good nutrition through series of talks, drama and games under the strong supervision and endorsement of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the School Health Education Programme (SHEP) in basic schools. It forms part of the commitments of Nestlé Ghana to contributing to healthier lives for individuals and families. According to Nestle Ghana, similar public education events on nutrition have been planned to for various basic schools across the country. The event saw over 200 mothers and caregivers anxiously trooping to the grounds for information. Some of them eventually won scholarships for the...

Telecommunications giant, Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN), has exceeded its target of 2,017 pints of blood by collecting a total of 2,551 at its 6th annual blood donation exercise. Since inception, the MTN campaign has collected a total of 6,302 pints of blood on behalf of the blood bank. This year’s exercise dubbed “operation 2017”, had 12 ‘bleeding centres’ across the country where the general public including staff of MTN expressed their love on Valentine’s Day by donating blood to shore up the national blood bank. Every year, for the past six years, MTN organizes a blood donation exercise at its regional offices and some vantage points to provide opportunity for people to donate blood Briefing the media during the exercise, the Executive Director of MTN Foundation, Mrs. Cynthia Lumor noted that the exercise was in response to a distress call by the Ghana Blood Bank to help stock its bank. She noted “exercise has been hugely successful”. According to her, the natio...

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement Program (ADVANCE) and Nestlé have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a partnership for a regular supply of high-quality agricultural commodities especially maize in Ghana. Under this new partnership, USAID ADVANCE and Nestlé Ghana will work together to build the capacity of farmers and aggregators in the three Northern regions to ensure farmers produce maize that meets Nestlé’s quality standards. The objective of this partnership is to increase the quality of the overall grains supply in Ghana, by training 113,000 farmers by 2018. USAID ADVANCE will train selected farmers and aggregators on agronomic, post-harvest protocols and good storage practices which have been developed by Nestlé to reduce the mycotoxins in upstream value chain. This event was attended by Emmanuel Dormon, Chief of Party for USAID-ADVANCE, Freda Duplan, Managing Di...

By Edward Adjei FRIMPONG, Sunyani The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has advanced a process to introduce a single window system to incorporate every actor in the tourism industry on the ‘one-stop shop’ platform to boost promotion and marketing in order to enhance socio-economic returns from the industry. “The system will advertise every tourism actor still doing business in the dark. It will give vivid information about climatic conditions at the various destinations and traffic situations there as well as where to catch a bus or airline to these places,” Acting Chief Executive Office on GTA, Gideon Aryeequaye, said. The tourism single window system, he explained, will give the country a competitive edge over other tourism-oriented countries on the continent, adding, “we are starting this initiative immediately; the Authority has already given out the contract.” Mr. Aryeequaye was speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting in Sunyani. The meeting which formed part of his familiarization...

Pop star Jessie J brought a piece of London glamour to the streets of Tokyo as she boarded a red London bus in the heart of downtown Tokyo to help British Airways bring a slice of eccentric British culture to the Japanese capital. The star - famous for songs including Price Tag – surprised locals by appearing as part of British Airways' London For Less campaign, which is highlighting the fantastic value foreign visitors can currently enjoy in England at the moment. British Airways pilots and crew took over Tokyo's streets to celebrate how international travellers into London can currently enjoy the city's most famous attractions for up to 45% cheaper than usual following the appreciation of the Yen. The airline - which operates 14 flights a week between Tokyo and London - flew Jessie in from Los Angeles in America to meet her Tokyo fans. The historic bus toured the city between 1pm-8pm offering free rides between Roppongi, Harajuku and Shibuya. Chart-topper Jessie,...