Development at District Level is across actors - CDD

Mr Awal Mohammed, a Research Officer of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana ) has observed that development at the District Level involved actors across the nation.

The Research Officer who made the observation during a Regional launch of the District League Table (DLT) held in Bolgatanga, said his outfit in collaboration with UNICEF and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development developed the DLT.

He said the DLT, the first of its kind in Ghana is to assess, compare and measure the level of development of all the 216 Districts in the country in the provision of key public service delivery.

“It is also a collective effort to help promote social accountability through active citizens’ participation in local governance and development. It is also to help attract other stakeholders and development partners to help those who are lagging behind,” Mr Mohammed stressed.

He impressed upon media professionals to help champion development of the various district assemblies in the Region to help improve their service delivery systems to enable them catch up with the rest of the developed ones instead of using their platforms to engage in political debates.

Among the 13 municipal and district assemblies in the Upper East Region , the Bolgatanga Municipal which emerged first was ranked 15th among the 216 MMDAs at the national ranking whilst the Bawku Municipal that was second at the Regional level got the 21st position at the national level.

Bongo District which became third at the Regional level scored 36th position at the national level, whilst the Nabdam District, Bawku West and Kassena Nankana West that emerged the fourth , fifth and sixth position respectively at the Regional level got 39, 48 and 62 positions respectively at the national ranking.

The Builsa North, Talensi, Pusiga and Kassena –Nankana East Municipal got 7th, 8th and 9th positions respectively at the Regional level whilst they emerged 75th, 78th and 99th positions respectively nationally.

The Builsa South, Garu-Tempane and Binduri Districts emerged 11th, 12th and 13th respectively at the Regional level whilst on the national level they became 117th, 136th and 178th respectively.

One common phenomenon that ran through the thirteen Municipal and District Assemblies in the Region was that all of them scored 100 per cent in District Development Facility whilst all of them also score zero per cent in Open Defecation which were among the indicators used for the measurement of performance.

On the health front, most of them did not perform well as skilled delivery of pregnant women was below standard including poor performance in sanitation.

Ms Z. Dome, a Research Officer of CDD who presented the Regional Highlights of the DLT stressed the need for the thirteen Districts to work towards addressing their weakness particularly in the area of sanitation and skilled delivery of pregnant women.

Stakeholders at the forum including media practitioners and civil society organization blamed the poor performances of some districts on the fact that most of them were created based on political interest and population without taking into consideration geographical, social and economic visibilities and viabilities of the areas.

Majority of the stakeholders who lamented about the absence of social accountability and social auditing in some of the districts expressed optimism that the project would address the challenges.

GNA