Government must strengthen local government structures – CDD-Ghana  

By Dennis Peprah/Anthony Apubeo, GNA
Tamale, Aug. 8, GNA – Mr Mohammed Awal, the Research Manager, Team Leader, Social Accountability and
SDGs at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has called on the government to
strengthen local government structures to be accountable to citizens.
He stressed that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies spearheaded the development of communities,
however, worried the regular and prompt inflow of central government resources remained a setback in
executing their development mandate.
Mr Awal made the call when speaking at a two-day capacity training workshop in Tamale, saying “the district
assemblies need resources to be able to bring development but all the taxes we collect are centralised at the
national level”.
The CDD-Ghana is being attended by policy actors, CSOs and the media, selected from its Evidence for
Development (E4D) project implementation districts in the country.
It sought to reflect on the current state of evidence use in policy and practice, and to identify lessons learned to
advance the institutionalisation of evidence-informed decision-making practices at the local levels.
CDD-Ghana, with support from Hewlett Foundation, implemented the E4D project from 2019 to 2021 to
strengthen the capacity of government policy actors in evidence-informed policy making to improve social
development outcomes.
The project also seeks to motivate government policy actors to access and use the best available data and
evidence to inform policies and programme implementation at the sub-national and district levels of the country.
Mr Awal expressed concern that the District Assembly Common Fund (DAFC), meant to support the assemblies
to undertake development projects did not flow regularly, a situation he added was ‘defeating’ the tenets of the
nation’s decentralisation system.
The government ought to do more to make the local government structures to function for the purposes of
development.
Mr Awal advised the media and Civil Society Organisations to amplify community challenges and help deepen
transparency and accountability in the utilization of resources at the local levels.
He also underscored the need for local communities to be aware of the operations and limitations of the District
Assemblies and to demand for developments.
In a group discussion, some of the participants called on Community-based Organisations (CBOs) and the
media to endeavour to use evidence-based approaches in advocacy campaigns to effect societal change and
drive local development.
They must also strive to avoid biases, de-politicised issues, and endeavour to credit their data sources to
guarantee their credibility too.
GNA