[Ghana] Social Accountability And Poverty Reduction

from All Africa

Akua Adufa Aboagye

The Centre for Budget Advocacy (CBA) of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), a Ghanaian Non-Governmental Research and Advocacy Organisation, has conducted a community assessment on Social Accountability and Poverty Reduction in five Pilot Districts.

Speaking at the launch, Mr. Vitus Azeem who is the Coordinator for CBA said the study was conducted in two parts but in the same areas - community assessment of poverty reduction interventions and service provision at the community level.

Mr. Azeem said the objective of the study was to enable communities to make assessment of poverty reduction interventions and service provision at the community level, and provide them the opportunity to interact with their service providers.

He said the study sought to verify whether resources allocated to vulnerable and excluded groups for poverty reduction expenditures actually get to them and how they are used.

Mr. Azeem said the study was conducted to get communities to evaluate service delivery, the implementation of the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) in selected districts. It was also to promote social and public accountability at the District Assembly level by empowering communities to hold public officials and service providers accountable for their work towards reducing poverty and improving the quality of the people.

He said the study made use of a combination of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) approaches, using the Community Score Card (CSC) as its main instrument.

He said the study found that service providers have recognized that service delivery area is an essential ingredient in meeting community needs.

He said the communities hold strong views about the quality implementation of projects and wished they were given the opportunity to query service providers on the quality of service delivery.

He said the communities recommended that projects should be demand-driven with periodic reviews of projects at project sites by community members and service providers. In addition, he said, there should be sensitization of communities, which should include specifying the roles expected of each group and the active involvement of community members at every stage of policy design and implementation.

The President of the Africa Institute of Journalism and Communication and a board member of the Public Agenda newspaper, Mr. Kojo Yankah, called on all those who are genuinely interested in seeing poverty reduced in Ghana not to impose projects on the communities as the people know what they need and therefore must be consulted.

He advised the media and other social agents to equip themselves with the demands of the people so they can help in sensitization exercises to bring the people closer to their needs.