The Action Research Project (ARP)
The Action Research Project (ARP) is an ambitious initiative by the LRC to compile a comprehensive database of materials regarding human rights issues in Ghana. This project is also envisioned as a centre for the production of research materials that will pave the way for action to improve human rights policies and laws. This project is to serve as a one stop shop for human rights reference materials such as policies, legislation, newspapers, textbooks, and law reports, as well as television broadcasts and on-line reports. The ARP is intended to help LRC staff produce well researched papers, articles and memoranda. The project also serves as a means of documenting our own independent research.
As part of this project, the LRC has collaborated with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) to conduct research into the operations of governmental boards, committees, commissions and initiatives to ensure that these groups have followed through with promises or assurances that they had made to Ghanaians. This has involved investigating some of these governmental bodies:
- The Pension reform implementation Committee;
- The Public Utility Regulatory Commission;
- The Presidential Commission on Chieftaincy Affairs;
- The National Development Planning Commission;
- National Governance Programme.
Current research topics under this project include: 1. Disability rights as they relate to HIV / AIDS and the implementation of the provisions of the Disability Act; 2. The need and processes for the introduction of Private Members Bill in parliament in Ghana; 3. Judicial accountability and the need for the election of Judges; 4. Gender equity and representation on Public Boards and enforcement of constitutional provisions on gender; 5. The rights of prisoners to vote in presidential and Parliamentary elections in Ghana; 6. Human Trafficking and the implementation of the provisions of the Human Trafficking Act; 7. Responsibilities of Ghanaian monopoly companies and violations of the principles of the common law tort of conspiracy; 8. The effectiveness of the rules of court (Order 67, C.I. 47) as a means of seeking redress for human rights violations in Ghana.