A working session to review and provide guidance on the Annual Workplan and Budget for the Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion Project (SOCO) for the year 2023 has taken place in Aburi, in the Eastern Region.

The session provided the platform for participants to review the progress of the project, provide guidance on the Annual Workplan and Budget for the year 2023 as well as consolidate all subprojects selected by the 48 SOCO beneficiary Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies for the annual year.

Opening the session, the Chief Director for the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Madam Marian W. A. Kpakpah, explained that for the project to be successful, there was the need for comprehensive multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional perspectives, thus, the working session with the NTC.

She called on participants; who make up the NTC to take advantage of the session to work with the stakeholders and beneficiaries of the project in mind to put in place interventions that will enable them to feel the impact of the project through improved social and economic development.

The NTC is the body that provides inter-agency technical guidance for the implementation of project components and makes policy recommendations to the Project Oversight Committee (POC) for decision-making.

The formation of the NTC  is to achieve effective collaboration with other MDAs to cover the relevant sectors of the project to ensure consistency of project development objectives with sectoral policies and programmes.

The membership of the NTC included the Ministries of Finance; Gender, Children and Social Protection; Food and Agriculture, National Security, Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration and the Ministry of the Interior.

Others include the National Disaster and Management Organisation; National Development Planning Commission, Northern Development Agency, Ghana Immigration Service, as well as the National Youth Authority,

The Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) Project is a sub-Sahel Regional project aimed at providing support for the northern parts of the Gulf of Guinea countries (Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin), that are hardest hit by fragilities due to food insecurity and climate change, conflict and violence. These risk factors are anticipated to influence community members and youth within these sub-Sahel regions to be highly susceptible to extremist ideologies.

SOCO is expected to help improve the socio-economic resilience of 48 targeted districts in the Upper West, Upper East, Northern, North East, Savannah and Oti Regions through various components in the form of investments in Infrastructure, Local Economic Development and Youth Engagement activities.

It is expected to also provide an avenue to coordinate border-area investments, information and improve regional dialogues. The project uses the Community Driven Development (CDD) approach where decisions for investments are taken by communities in a participatory manner, to promote a sense of ownership for the investments that will be made.

The beneficiary District Assemblies will lead the implementation at the local level thus providing an opportunity for capacity development in projects. The project will strategically build capacity in procurement, Financial Management and Social Risk Management in a coordinated manner.

SOCO represents continuous learning on developing scalable interventions that can effectively promote the elimination of extreme poverty to ensure equitable national development and shared prosperity for every citizen.

Source: PUBLIC RELATIONS UNIT (MLGDRD)

A three-day validation workshop for stakeholders to make inputs, comments and suggestions on best practices, statutory requirements, and coordination for the effective implementation of a National Urban Policy (NUP) and an Implementation Plan has been held in Ho in the Volta Region.

The documents reviewed were the National Slum Upgrading and Prevention Strategy, the Revised National Urban Policy((2023-2032)  and an Implementation Plan Document.

The revised NU P(2013-2032) follows the successful implementation of the NUP (2012) looking back to the implementation of the latter and seeks to build on its successes and further fill the gaps identified.

The revised NUP (2013-2032) replaces the NUP (2012) after its validation, its approval and adoption will push for the agenda toward inclusive, resilient and safe and sustainable urban settlements to achieve national and global goals.

It also anticipates new opportunities and proposes strategies to address emerging challenges to Ghana's urbanisation future with an outlook based on national aspirations as documented in the 1992 Constitution, other related national policy documents and projections as well as international commitments.

The revised NUP which was formulated in accordance with the National Development Planning Commission's (NDPC) guidelines for formulating public policy will provide direction for all relevant stakeholders and institutions that play roles in the transformation of urban settlements and their functional areas in Ghana

Speaking at the workshop, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Local Government Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD), Marian W. A. Kpakpah stressed the need for greater collaboration, cooperation, coordinated action and flexibility of all stakeholders to ensure the success of the policy when approved and implemented.

Participants at the workshop were drawn from Academia, Civil Society Organisations, (CSOs), Development Partners and Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Source:                PUBLIC RELATIONS UNIT (MLGDRD)

Issues on coordination, monitoring, and supervision have been identified as challenges that hinder the smooth operations of service delivery at the local government level, thus the need for proper compliance and enforcement of the Local Government ACT 2016 (Act 936) by the Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs).

This was in a presentation by the Head of Service at the Office of the Civil Service, Nana Agyekum Dwamena during a two-day joint meeting of the Councils of Local Government Service (LGS) and the Institute of Local Government Studies on human resource management and capacity-building responsibilities for effective local governance in Accra.

The Head of Service said the Local Government Act 2016 clearly defines the coordination role of the RCCs which is critical to decentralisation therefore services rendered by these technocrats at all levels should make meaning to the ordinary Ghanaian.

According to him, the ordinary Ghanaian blames the government in power when they do not feel the work of the public service staff, he, therefore charged them to support the government to realise development at the district level.

He acknowledged the challenges the RCCs face in their coordinating, monitoring, and supervisory role as well as compliance and enforcement, especially when it comes to independent bodies working within their regions. He encouraged them to get everyone in service delivery on board to fulfill the government’s agenda.

He called on the government to adequately structure and fund the RCCs to deliver on their mandates, saying that, there should be in place systems and processes for enforcement facilitation.

Nana Dwamena noted that continuous interference under the guise of monitoring and evaluation by the government could also hinder service delivery.

He identified some emerging issues as the lack of understanding of the decentralisation agenda and called for frequent engagements and interaction among assembly staff at the regional and district levels to enable them demand accountability from assembly staff.

The Head of Service advised the RCCs to conduct research into the effectiveness of coordination and come out with a manual to aid district assembly staff.

HONOURABLE MINISTER

The Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Hon. Daniel Botwe on his part noted that coordination, monitoring and supervision have been spelt out in Act 936 as the first function of the RCCs.

He urged the RCCs to play their monitoring role to ensure district assemblies utilise their resources and funds to reduce audit infractions.

LGS COUNCIL CHAIR

The Chairman for the Local Government Council, Dr. David W. Essaw the two Councils have taken note of some major policies that were brought to the fore during the two-day deliberations and pledged to work with the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA), the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee (IMCC) on Decentralisation to enforce the policies.

He noted that the challenges in the health and education sectors when it comes to decentralisation is that, the two institutions are still not decentralised making it difficult for the RCCs to monitor and supervise their activities at the regional level.

He called for the need for some framework to work with, thus, the Councils would work towards the development of guidelines on coordination that would impact and improve upon the living conditions of the people.

Source:              PUBLIC RELATIONS UNIT (MLGDRD)