Participants at stakeholder?s consultative meeting in Accra on 24 June have called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to work closely with each other in order to maximize the impact of development interventions at the local level.
They called for full implementation of the National Decentralization Action Plan (NDAP) which among others has the objective to clarify and strengthen the roles and relationships between key non-state actors such as the traditional authorities and civil society groups in local governance.
The 2010 national policy framework is intended to accelerate the decentralization effort towards the ends envisaged in the Fourth Republican Constitution and to give the process the clarity and consistency and certainty required to promote local level governance and development. This plan is guided by that goal and the following policy objectives:
i. To clarify the status, roles and relationships between levels of government and different actors to strengthen their participation in and contribution to local governance;
ii. To improve the administrative and human resource capacity of the MMDAs and other local government stakeholders to ensure quality service delivery;
iii. To strengthen the capacity for, coordination and implementation of spatial, physical and development planning at the local level and its integration with budgeting and the national agenda, generally;
iv. To facilitate economic growth, employment and income generation in order to promote household welfare and alleviate poverty;
v. To improve funding and financial management of MMDAs;
vi. To promote local democracy, participation and accountability through strong and more viable stakeholder involvement in local governance;
vii. To promote a rights-based orientation to local level development, ensuring equitable access to public resources and inclusiveness in decision-making;
ix. To streamline, harmonize and coordinate development partner interventions to ensure optimal use of donor resources for local level development;
x. Finally to facilitate effective policy coordination and collaboration for smooth devolution of political, administrative and financial authority from the centre to the assemblies.
The implementation of the National Decentralization Action Plan is expected to end in July 2014. However there are still a lot of outstanding activities yet to be implemented.
The Decentralisation Policy Framework Progress report published in December, 2013 by the Inter Ministerial Coordinating Committee notes that, the action area 9, which deals with the involvement of Non-State Actors in local governance has not been fully implemented.
How can we as a nation strengthen the local governance structure which finds expression in grass root development, when activities in the area of political and legal reforms have not been implemented at the anticipated pace due to outstanding constitutional amendments which are based on the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) report and the government white paper as captured in the foreword of the progress report?
In April 2010, the Government of Ghana (GoG) adopted a comprehensive and cross-partisan National Decentralization Policy Framework (NDAP) which outlined the key policy objectives for Decentralisation and set out areas of policy measures and actions to implement them.
In June of the same year, the implementation committee was inaugurated.
Even though some progress has been made some activities have stagnated.
The report notes that a number of legislations are still awaiting Cabinet approval.
The report indicts some implementing agencies who said they were not aware of the existence of NDAP.
It is within the spirit of contributing to the realization of the objectives of the NDAP that SEND-GHANA, a Civil Society Organisation held a Consultative Meeting With Civil Society Organisations and District Assemblies On The Project: ?Maximizing The Participation Of Non State Actors In Local Governance For Increased Accountability, Transparency And Responsiveness,?? in Accra on 24 June.
The purpose of the engagement was to collate views of participants to develop a guideline on roles and relationships of Civil Society with District Assemblies in local governance as envisaged by the National Decentralisation Policy.
The development of the Guideline, seeks to contribute to enhance the de jure and de facto enabling environment for CSOs so that they can effectively contribute to governance and development processes at the local level. It would also contribute towards establishing institutional framework for partnership between CSOs and District Assemblies.
George Osei-Bimpeh, the Country Director of SEND-GHANA in his opening remarks observed that, “one key challenge we have come to realize is how to promote effective participatory governance system that is more efficient and beneficial both to the citizens and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
Why do we have issues that bother on clarity in the relationship that we intend to have with the district assemblies? He asked.
According to him, at the moment we have a fragmented way of engaging MMDAs. Suspicion is the order of the day.
He believes that all of this happens because we have not managed our relationship well.
We need to bring governance to the doorstep of the people and that is to ensure the actualization of the dreams and aspiration of the people, Osei-Bimpeh urged.
Stephen Osei-Yeboah of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) believes that good local governance leads to local development.
Source-SEND-GHANA
