The goals and objectives of the Traders Advocacy Group Ghana (TAGG) are to facilitate change and develop new areas of policy, in order to tackle unmet trade needs and deal with emerging trade issues in Ghana.

Our goal is the desired result of any advocacy activity. The goal of TAGG will be a long-term one, and it is projected that it will take three to five years of advocacy work to bring about the desired result. TAGG can also achieve more with the involvement of other Trade Associations to bring about the required change.

OBJECTIVES

The main objectives of the Group are to:

• To mobilize the informal sector to assist Government, MMDA’s and the Financial Institutions etc.; in generating data.
• Include Traders Advocacy Group Ghana (TAGG) Investment drive with financial institutions and mobilization of donations from members through promotional event and at every membership meeting, fund raising and educational event.

• Hold major investor events for traders in the country through various engagements with MMDA’s.

• Encourage the Executive Committees and Management team to lead by example and contribute above the fair share level and appreciate those members with notes, announcements and recognition.

• Promote various sector Associations to sign up with Traders Advocacy Group Ghana (TAGG) in Memorandum of understanding to enable them become active members and also involve in programs of TAGG.
• To constitute TAGG Committees with representatives from selected firms who will champion the various courses of action

Other Areas of Focus
Other areas of focus are to support property rights, housing, and real property ownership by providing active campaign assistance for local political actors who are friendly to the Group’s issues by identifying local municipalities where the association will be involved in the political scene and develop a plan to monitor activities of the governing party at any given time. This could be achieved through encouraging participation in the National lobbying in respect of Government policies with the broad intension to impact members on socio-economic issues that affect them directly.

Basis for these Objectives

As SMART as TAGG intends to be, its objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound and are always linked to available resources – key ingredients needed for the achievement of the desired results.
To understand the differences between our goals and objectives, it is important to remember that an advocacy issue is where there is a problem. Perhaps in our trading activities there has to be equity coverage throughout, due to inaccessible support for traders. This is an issue that advocacy seeks to tackle.

ADVANTAGES OF THE ADVOCACY

The success of our advocacy as a method of problem solving or resolution is tied in part to the advocates’ philosophy of searching for solutions rather than problems. As TAGG members acting as advocates may be able to find ways to resolve trading problems and provide ongoing representational advocacy for traders. TAGG should be particularly forthcoming at identifying the strengths of their own trading issues, and should help to find ways of solving trade-related problems.