Take stock of flagship programmes - Dr Abudulai urges govt, partners

THE Board Chairman of the Northern Development Authority (NDA), Dr Sulemana Abudulai, has urged the government to deepen collaboration with development partners to take stock of all ongoing donor-funded interventions and flagship programmes in the country, particularly in the north.

That, he said, would enable the nation to identify reasons why such interventions had not made the desired impact over the years and come up with strategies that would be more beneficial to the people.

Dr Abudulai said this at a day's workshop for development partners engaged in the implementation of a $150 million Ghana Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) project launched in November 2022 in Accra yesterday.

Dubbed, “The deep dive workshop,” the event was aimed at firming up collaboration between the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD), and development partners in the implementation of specific programmes in northern Ghana for greater impact.

Among the thematic areas discussed were local economic development, digital innovation, local governance and social cohesion.

Participants included representatives from the MLGDRD, the National Youth Authority, the National Development Planning Commission, the Ghana Enterprise Agency, the National Peace Council, STAR Ghana and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The workshop was organised by the MLGDRD in collaboration with the World Bank.

Concerns

The board chairman also expressed concern about the lack of coordination, the development of a strong database and creation of a common platform between development partners and the government to share information and ideas on interventions in the country.

According to him, the situation had created some gaps which, he said, needed to be filled for the people to feel the impact of the various development projects and flagship programmes.

For instance, Dr Abudulai said a strong database would be able to analyse the impact of programmes such as the One-Village-One-Dam policy on vegetable production.

“Do we know where some of these dams are located; and whether they have made any impact on the local communities.

Are there things to be done to improve on efficiency of the dams?” he enquired.

SOCO project

On the SOCO project, Dr Abdulai said it recognised digitalisation as a key strategy in its successful implementation.

The project is being implemented in 48 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in six regions of the north.

It is aimed at preventing the spread of conflict from the Sahel, reducing vulnerability to climate change, strengthening local institutions, and creating economic opportunities and public trust.

The beneficiary regions are Northern, North East, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah and Oti. The project ends in 2027.

Significance

The Operations Manager of the World Bank, Agata Pawlowska, also described the “workshop as a timely initiative to engage policymakers and development partners to discuss and explore ways to promote coordinated and integrated development projects and jobs in northern Ghana”.

For his part, the Chief Director of the MLGDRD, Amin Abdul-Rahman, said his outfit intended to explore an integrated development approach towards delivery of development programmes in beneficiary regions for the benefit of the people.