LOCAL GOVERNANCE AND DECENTRALIZATION IN GHANA

Do you know much about local Governance and Decentralization in Ghana?

Because DevtPlan Consult is one of the leading consultancy firms in Kumasi, Ghana,we have been certified by the Local Governance Service Secretariat to provide generic and demand driven consultancy services to Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in Ghana.

Under the Government of Ghana’s decentralization and local government reform initiative, Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have been assigned a wide range of responsibilities, including the provision of basic social service and infrastructure and the coordination of local economic development. 

The MMDAs thus have critical role in addressing national poverty reduction objectives and, as such, in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

                      

Over the years, resources have been transferred to the local government to finance the construction of basic infrastructure as well as deliver basic social services. Additionally, it is evidently clear that the MMDAs have limited capacity to manage and utilize data for decision making and planning, thus hampering their overall performance and effective development of their plans in particular. To provide additional resources and improve the performance of the MMDAs, Government together with its Development Partners has introduced a Performance Based Grant System (PBGS) called District Development Facility (DDF).

With the District Development Facility initiative, the MMDAs’ access to the discretionary development funds will be related to regular performance assessment under the Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT). Central to this initiative, the Government of Ghana and Development Partners that support local governance in Ghana have earmarked part of their development support for implementation of the performance-based funding. MMDAs which meet the minimum conditions and excel during the assessment are rewarded with additional fiscal transfers whilst tailor-made capacity building support is designed for MMDAs which exhibit capacity gaps.

The Sekyere Afram Plains District Assembly therefore contracted Devtplan consult to organize and facilitate a five -day training workshop on selected topics for key personnel and heads of departments in the district.To read more about the Five day training workshop watch out for our next Post.