CDD Empowers Local Communities In Nanumba South

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.