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| Mr. Awal Ahmed |
The Executive
Director of Rural Initiatives for Self Empowerment Awal Ahmed, has urged
journalists to help District Assemblies to identify the priorities and needs of
their citizens so that they can make the right investments that will bring
economic improvement in their lives.
He said one way journalists could effectively
help the District Assemblies is by highlighting the priorities and needs of
ordinary citizens to the attention of local officials so that those priorities
and needs could be captured during planning and budgeting processes.
According to him, some District Assemblies
refuse to take on board the wishes and concerns of their people when drawing
their development plans or planning the execution of projects that are supposedly
intended for the benefit of the people.
“Apart from the president, the only people
political appointees such as District Chief Executives will listen to are
journalists. As the voice of the people, you know and understand what the needs
of ordinary citizens are and therefore, you can help amplify the concerns of
citizens so that the DCE can see reason to consider them”, Mr. Ahmed said this
during a workshop organised by RISE-Ghana and the Centre for Democratic Development
in Tamale.
The
workshop was organised for selected media actors to build their capacity as
part of efforts to improve governance and the quality of service delivery at
the district level. It was intended to enhance the knowledge of journalists in
using evidence from the District League Table (DLT) and the I Am Aware Data to
inform evidence based advocacy for improved service delivery.
The
primary purpose of the workshop was to create awareness and identify key service
delivery areas such as health, education, water and among others for citizens,
and for the media to champion and monitor for improved service delivery for
better outcomes in sectors such as health, education, security, governance,
water and sanitation.
Development
at the District Assembly level is often largely dependent on the efforts of
local authorities and the amount of resources they are able to generate locally
through taxes. At times, too, periodic support in the form of the District
Assembly’s Common Fund, District Development Fund and among others from the
central government and other development partners, makes it possible for
Assemblies to provide the needed development for their people.
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| A Section Journalists At The Workshop |
For instance, results of the annual DLT
strongly suggest that, some District Assemblies are well endowed and therefore,
are able to gather enough resources to implement monumental projects such as
schools, hospitals, sanitation facilities, roads and markets among others.
On the other hand, the results also give an
indication that other District Assemblies are unable to provide the same or
similar facilities owing to lack of or inadequate revenue generation sources, disorganise
priorities and incompetent civil servants.
According to Mr. Ahmed, the DLT which was
introduced in 2014 is a social accountability tool that ranks Ghana’s 216
districts by their level of development and service delivery. “Based on
consultations with the ministries and agencies concerned, the DLT uses
indicators from 6 key sectors –health, education, sanitation, water, governance
and security to compile a single score for each district.
“All the 216 districts are then ranked from
the district in 1st place down to that in 216th place.
With this ranking, it is possible to track which districts are doing well in
Ghana and can be learnt from, and which ones are struggling and need greater
support”, he explained.
The
Executive Director RISE-Ghana encouraged journalists to visit www.iamawareghana.com
and make use of relevant information cutting across health, education and water
and sanitation. “Information and data on this website would tell you whether
your district is on the right track in terms of development in the key areas
cited”, he stressed.
Meanwhile, a three-member media monitoring group
comprising of Mr. Muturla Issah from Radio Savannah, Mr. Zadok Kwame Gyesi,
Daily Graohic and Mr. Joseph Ziem of The Daily Dispatch was formed to engage in
social actions on public services.
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