NGO supports two Regional Houses of Chiefs

Tamale, Feb. 8, GNA - The Regional Advisory Information and Network Systems (RAINS), a Tamale-based NGO on Tuesday presented two motor bicycles and some electronic gadgets, valued at about 106 million cedis to the Northern and Upper East Regional Houses of Chiefs in Tamale. The gadgets included two 20-inch colour television sets, two disk video deck players, two video cassette deck players, two computers and accessories and one laptop computer.

RAINS, which is dedicated to providing development and humanitarian services to deprived communities in the Northern Region also facilitates the enhancement of skills and knowledge base of chiefs to enable them to participate more meaningfully in development activities at all levels.

Mr Abdulai Adam, Programmes Officer of RAINS in charge of Chieftaincy and Governance, who presented the items, said the gesture was to provide the two Houses with an institutional framework for keeping and using information on cultural values, belief systems and practices.

Mr Adam said RAINS intended to create capacity within the Houses of Chiefs and Traditional Councils to facilitate governance and natural resource management.

Mr Adam said the chieftaincy institutions in the three northern regions were still lagging behind in mobility and modern communication facilities and to address these problems, RAINS would embark on a training programme for chiefs to share ideas on best practices, challenges and the modernization of processes.

"The intention is to enable these central pillars of society...to share ideas on best practices, the challenges they are facing and the toll the processes of modernization is taking on their worlds." Mr Adam announced plans by RAINS to secure similar facilities for the Upper West Region, adding that, his organisation would organise national and regional conferences of chiefs to discuss democratisation and decentralization and how these affect them.

Mr John Babina, Registrar at the Northern Region House of Chiefs, who received the items, commended RAINS for the gesture and assured the NGO that the items would be put to good use.

He called on other NGOs to emulate RAINS by helping the chieftaincy institutions in the three northern regions to stand firm on their feet to enhance cultural and institutional development.