Sunyani municipality tops 2023 District League Table

The Sunyani municipality in the Bono Region has been adjudged the best-ranking municipality in the country with a 94.2-point score per the 2023 District League Table (DLT) report.

This is a leap from a 60.9-point score in 2022.

The Ayawaso West and Sekondi-Takoradi municipalities in the Greater Accra and Western regions followed closely with a score of 93.9 and 90.2 points respectively.

Other Metropolises, Municipalities and Districts (MMDs) ranked in the top 10 included the Tema Metropolis, La Dade-Kotopon Municipality, Nsawam Adoagyiri Municipality, Korle-Klottey Municipality, Techiman South Municipality, Ekumfi District and Dormaa Central Municipality.

Also, the 10 MMDs with the lowest scores in the DLT included Savelugu Municipality, Central Tongu District, Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District and Mamprugu-Moagduri District.

The rest are East Gonja Municipality, Sekyere Afram Plains, East Mamprusi Municipality, Kwahu Afram Plains North and Central Gonja.

Report launch

The DLT is an initiative that ranks metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) according to key development indicators.

A total of 18 indicators were assessed under eight sectors, namely health, nutrition, education, water, sanitation, energy, child protection and governance.

The results were made known during the launch of the 2023 DLT report in Accra yesterday by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), in partnership with UNICEF Ghana in Accra.

Findings

The majority of the MMDs in the top 10 were metropolises or municipalities located in the middle belt and coastal zones, underscoring the challenges faced by districts.

Also, most of the MMDs with the lowest scores were districts, scoring 50 or below.

The Greater Accra Region sustained its position as the top-scoring region, with its score improving significantly from 66.7 in 2022 to 81.2 in 2023.

 The three lowest-rated regions continued to be located in the northern zone, highlighting the continued development imbalance between the northern, middle belt and coastal zones.
 

Partnership

At the launch of the report, the Chairman of the NDPC, Dr Nii Moi Thompson, emphasised that the rankings must reflect the living conditions of people while calling for the need to focus on the impact of the report rather than just the numbers.

He said more attention needed to be paid to the local government which he said seemed to be the weakest link in the development chain.

“Going forward, we are going to pay a great deal of attention to research, policy research, some of it might be experimental research, which we then share with the relevant MDAs or the government,” he said.

The Head of Policy Planning Coordination Unit at the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Carl Quist, said the ministry remained committed to working with stakeholders to translate the findings into actionable policies that enhanced decentralisation.

He urged MMDAs to take the results of the 2023 DLT as an opportunity to strengthen their governance structures and foster inclusive development within their respective jurisdictions.

­Funding

The Chief of Social Policy and Inclusion, Paulina Sarvilahti, called on stakeholders to take a second look at the allocation of resources to low-ranking districts and the type of actions and policies needed for good results.

She appealed to the NDPC and the Ministry of Finance to reference the DLT as one of the tools which the MDAs could use to guide their allocation of financial and human resources to the district level, for the sake of the low-ranked districts.

She added that it would be useful for the District Assemblies Common Fund to also consider the DLT as one of its reference documents to ensure a more equitable allocation of the Fund.