Community Score Card training ends in Tamale

Project and Programme Managers of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) including media practitioners working in governance have ended a two-day capacity building training in Tamale on how to develop the Community Score Card.

Community Score Card is a participatory and community based monitoring tool that is primarily meant to monitor service providers such as the Municipal and District Assemblies to deliver quality services as well as ensure accountability and transparency in the delivery of services.

The event, organized by the Institute of Local Government Studies under the Social Accountability Platform for Local Governance Performance Project, attracted participants from the northern zones including the Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East, Upper West and the Ashanti Regions.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency, the Project Manager of Social Accountability Platform for Local Governance Performance Project, Mr Edward Adu Aboagye, explained that over the years the state had taken responsibilities such as the provision of basic services including education, health and sanitation.

He said the state had not been able to fully fulfil the needs of the people in delivering such services, hence the introduction of the decentralization concept to give power to the local authority to use the limited resources at their disposal judiciously to help improve upon service delivery.

Mr Aboagye indicated that one of the mechanisms that could be used to improve the performance of public officials, who delivered public services, was through accountability, noting that CSOs and the media had become significant channels for effective use of social accountability tools.

He said it was in this regard that the Social Accountability Platform for Local Governance Performance Project with funding from the European Union, organised the training programme to help bring about efficient service delivery at the local level, adding “the CSOs and the media are expected to play an interface role between the district assemblies and the communities to help achieve the results.”

The Head of Governance Section of the European Union, Madam Pillar Palmero, who stated that the ultimate aim of her outfit was to ensure that the living conditions of citizens especially the deprived were improved upon, emphasized the need for government and development partners to work together to realize the dream.

“There is the need for dialogue and to develop the relationship of mutual trust which is important at improving upon the living conditions of the people.

The CSOs and the Media have a critical role to play in ensuring that this accountability and the Score Card is a good tool to enhancing social accountability,” she stressed.