THE National Security Council Secretariat has held a one-day regional stakeholder engagement in Cape Coast in the Central Region as part of efforts to review the 2020 National Security Strategy.
The engagement was aimed at gathering regional perspectives on security threats, risks, vulnerabilities and emerging concerns confronting the country, as well as obtaining substantive inputs for the preparation of a revised, forward-looking national security strategy.
The forum brought together participants from various fields, including civil society, academia, traditional authorities and the clergy, to deliberate on the existing document as part of the statutory review process.
The Technical Advisor and Intelligence Advisor to the National Security Coordinator, Dr Muhammad Baako, said the adoption of the national security strategy in 2020 was intended to safeguard national sovereignty, protect citizens and maintain peace, security and stability.
“The National Security Council Secretariat is currently undertaking a review of this national security strategy,” he said.
Dr Baako said the review was in line with the Security and Intelligence Agency Act, 2026 (Act 1168), and other relevant policies.
He said the meeting was intended to obtain stakeholders’ considered assessments of two key issues specific to the Central Region, adding that the revised document was still in draft form and had not been finalised.
Dr Baako said the Central Region also had a substantial youthful population in its secondary and tertiary institutions, a diverse tourism sector and an extensive coastal fishing community.
While these features offered economic advantages to the region and the country as a whole, he said, they also created security vulnerabilities because activities and people passing through the region could be difficult to monitor.
“Activities that pass through the region are substantially harder to detect,” he said.
He explained that the draft strategy treated such concerns as interconnected with the three priorities outlined earlier in his address, rather than as separate issues.
Dr Baako said the revised strategy would shift national security governance from an emphasis on state security to the security of individuals, and from a reactive approach to a more participatory one.
“It distributes responsibility beyond the uniform services as we used to know to cover traditional authority, district assembly,
FROM DAVID O. YARBOI-TETTEH, CAPE COAST
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