The Ghana Book Trust is part of the emerging network of non-governmental organizations in the educational sector in Ghana. Incorporated in 1990 as a non-profit organization, it operates as a charity of educational purposes. The GBT has identified shortage of books as a major weakness in Ghana's educational system and seeks to address this problem with the supply of local imported books to rural schools and libraries and needy urban institutions.
Since its establishment, the GBT has in partnership with donor agencies worked in support of various educational initiatives in the area of rural library development and supply of donated books to schools and community libraries.
The Ghana Book Trust was established by CODE (the Canadian Organisation for Development through Education), but in recent years CODE has stressed the importance of creating linkages and has been working with local groups that advise on potential projects. CODE's goal is to enable its overseas partners to become self-sufficient so that all educational literacy and post-literacy needs can be addressed from within the country.
In Ghana, many recipients benefited in the past from the Direct Mail Bag method of shipping books, apart from CODE's major partners, the Ghana National Association of Teachers, the National Catholic Secretariat and the Accra Technical Training Center.
These latter organizations have received containers (containing approximately 20,000 volumes) of books and have distributed them to various educational institutions. Containers consigned to the above partners contained books and equipment for other establishments, such as the Ghana Library Board, the Universities, the Ghana National Commission on Children, the Voluntary Adult Literacy and Vocational Education (VALVE) and the Military Hospital.
To reflect its long term objectives, CODE increasingly encouraged greater local involvement and participation in its overseas programmes and as a first step, a Local Advisory Committee was formed to advise the CODE representative in West Africa in the selection and approval of projects.
The CODE Representative (Regional Director) who lived in Bamako Mali and has responsibility for CODE's programmes in Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana appointed a Project Officer in Ghana to help in facilitating CODE's support to the various recipient partners in the country.
CODE's objective in developing partnership is to train recipients in the planning, monitoring and evaluation of projects.