A district forum on Citizen Information Campaigns has
been organized in Baduli in the Nanumba South District of the Northern Region of
Ghana to round up community level campaigns carried out in the district by the
Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana).
The forum which
was organized under CDD’s Local Democratic Debate Project and sponsored by the
French Embassy and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), was
attended by over 200 people drawn from the Baduli community and its
environs.
The project
which aims at boosting citizen participation in local governance and
strengthening local accountability systems at the district level sought to
deepen Ghana’s decentralization policy. It was also to give voice to the
communities to engage the District Assembly and Government on issues affecting
their development.
The Baduli
programme also formed part of a series of sensitization campaigns being carried
out in 23 communities by the Information Services Department, National
Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Department of Community Development and
Social Welfare.
Some of the topics
treated at the forum included the District Assembly System and Roles of Communities
in Development, Local Governance and Community Participation, Environmental
Sanitation and Cleanliness, Political Participation, Tolerance and Peaceful Elections.
The Deputy
Coordinating Director for the Nanumba South District, Braimah Adam Asumah, who represented
of the District Chief Executive at the forum, said the project was in line with
government’s efforts in bringing decentralization to the door steps of the
people.
According to Mr.
Asumah, the creation of more districts in the country would really give more
meaning to the decentralization policy and further enhance development.
He stated that
deepening decentralization was an important step to accelerate development at the local
level and therefore called on all stakeholders to map out strategies to enhance
people’s participation at the local level since it was the only way that
effective implementation of projects could be guaranteed.
On CDD-Ghana, Mr.
Asumah said he had followed their activities with keen interest and he was
convinced that the organization was playing a vital role in entrenching
democratic governance as envisaged in the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of
Ghana by expanding local people’s freedoms and choices.
Mr. Asumah,
therefore, commended CDD-Ghana for creating the opportunity for the people of
Nanumba South District to be part of the project since it had facilitated the
interactions between the communities and the District Assembly.
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