CCOD Partners African Universities 

The College for Community and Organisational Development (CCOD) has strategized to train a new cadre of OD practitioners in Ghana and some African countries over the next ten years. 

The realization of the objective will enable CCOD as an educational institution to leave a legacy and be remembered for training a new crop of OD professionals in Ghana and beyond who are imbued with high ethical standards. 

The President of the College for Community and Organisational Development (CCOD), Dr. Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu dropped the hint in an interview with GBC’s Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo on the fringes of an opening ceremony for MSc and BSc students of the College at the Pastoral Centre in Sunyani. 

In its avowed quest to make wave in OD, the College is working around the clock to strike further alliance with public and private universities across Africa to propagate the OD concept for adoption. 

According to Emmanuel, as result of the overtures from CCOD, Amadu Bello University in Nigeria, Nairobi University from Kenya as well as other Universities from Cote d’Ivoire and Benin have responded positively and are at various stages of discussion to run the OD course on behalf of CCOD. 

The Catholic University College of Ghana, Fiapre has also been roped in to deliver the OD course in a partnership that will run for five years. 

As part of the initiative, the Vice President of the College for Community and Organisational Development (CCOD) in charge of Academic, Dr. Ahmed Nuhu had been to Nigeria to finalize partnership deals with Amadu Bello University on OD knowledge impartation. 

The President CCOD, Dr. Benarkuu will also meet some University authorities from Africa during a global OD conference in Jamaica in June 2018 to seal to deals to become allies in OD training. 

Prof. Musah Nakora from Kenya is one of the personalities who will confer with Dr Benarkuu in Jamaica on what could be described as the OD evangelization mission across Africa partnership. 

Prof.  Nakora is a professor in leadership and OD at the SDA University in Nairobi and partner of CCOD. 

Dr. Benarkuu told the GBC that one cardinal principle of OD is that, it frowns on corruption and its practitioners are likely to institute measures that will allow the organisation to chart a path that is more sustainable as well as “moulding the behaviour of people, their moral behaviour, their work ethics, their time management coupled with their commitment”. 

During a facilitation session, Dr. Benarkuu said OD practitioners as change agents must make sure they utilize the latest OD tools and models to help organisations to function properly by carrying along all the team members in the transformational drive via dynamic team building. 

The President of CCOD intimated that every organisation facing challenges equally has solutions but the snag is that, the entity lacks the expertise to discover the potentials and the skills that it possesses to manage the situation. 

To these ends, the CCOD exists to help organisations to diagnose their internal issues and adopt the required strategies that can help them mitigate the challenges for their organisations to become much more responsive and stronger to deliver the goods. 

Dr. Benarkuu indicated that OD works well when top management in an organisation agrees for a change to take place and “until it is agreed for a change to happen, it is almost difficult for an OD consultant to be able to help facilitate change.” 

The President of CCOD therefore stressed the necessity for de-politicisation of state institutions in Ghana that have been politicised to enable the practice of OD to flourish in the country to the advantage of the citizenry. 

Dr. Benarkuu was of the view that when politics hold sway, efficiency and productivity are compromised because the culture, attitude and behaviour of the workforce are not reflective of the sociological and psychological mix needed to achieve organisational objectives or goals. 

The Pastoral Centre facilitation session enabled MSc students from diverse backgrounds across Ghana to share ideas on OD challenges of their work places. 

Base line information taken at the inception of the session as well as the end line data per the sociograms “1” and “2” indicated that 30.6% transformation had taken place among the MSc students.  

Mrs. Faustina Aayire who was some of the MSc students stated that she had acquired what she termed “enriched perspectives” on how to effect change in her organisation using OD principles. 

Some of the issues that came under the magnifying glass during the session were, OD Theory and Practice, Philosophical perspective in OD, Dynamic Team Building and Leadership Development, Research Methodology and Design as well as Action Research Model and Practice. 

The course facilitators included the Registrar of CCOD, Isaac Adaebsah and Enock Katere.

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