Human Resource is a Fulcrum for Development

from All Africa

Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)

By Ernest Kofi Adu
Kumasi

The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr. Emmanuel A. Owusu-Ansah, says government has focused on human resource development as the fulcrum to reduce poverty in Ghana after recognizing that the citizenry are the real wealth of the nation.

In a keynote address delivered on his behalf at a regional consultative forum on aid effectiveness, the Regional Minister noted that Ghana had been a beneficiary of many aid interventions over the years, as a result of the confidence gained in the country by development partners through the NPP government's concept of good governance and the desire to promote access to safe water and sanitation.

"Our development partners are really helping us in the form of grants and aids to provide portable water and decent sanitation facilities for our rural folks, capacity building at all levels of government as well as helping to deepen our decentralization process," he added.

The forum, which was organized by the Centre for Human Rights and Advance Legal Research (CHRALER), was aimed at disseminating information on the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness in order to generate discussions on indicators to measure the effectiveness of aid transaction. The Paris Declaration of 2005, is an international document containing consensus by donor countries and countries receiving aid and other stakeholders on improving the quality and impact of aid on development. Some of the indicators mentioned in the declaration are ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results and mutual accountability of aid.

Under ownership, partner countries are committed to exercise leadership in developing and implementing their national development strategies through broad consultative processes. And to translate these national development strategies into prioritized results-oriented operational programmes as expressed in medium-term expenditure frameworks and annual budgets.

The countries are also expected to take the lead in coordinating aid at all levels in conjunction with other development resources in dialogue with donors, and encouraging the participation of civil society and the private sector, while donor countries are expected to respect partner country's leadership and help strengthen their capacity to exercise it.

Partner countries receiving the aid commit to enhance mutual accountability and transparency in the use of development resources by strengthening the parliamentary role in national development strategies or budgets.

They are also expected to reinforce participatory approaches by systematically involving a broad range of development partners when formulating and assessing progress in implementing national development strategies.

The Chief Executive Officer of CHRALER, Mr. Ernest Owusu-Dapaah in a welcome address said the Regional Consultative Forum was to educate civil society in 30 districts across the country on aid effectiveness, facilitate communities to develop their own indicators of effective aid and prepare District Performance Assessment of Development Aid using report card on aid effectiveness in all ten administrative regions of Ghana.

He added that the forum was to facilitate communities to apply the framework for evaluating development aid to NGO programmes in the communities and to consult larger civil society on aid effectiveness.

According to him, the outcome of the forum's deliberations would form part of the national position that would be presented at the aid effectiveness conference scheduled for this September in Ghana.

The Chief Executive Officer of Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Ms. Patricia Appiagyei pointed to lack of understanding of the governance structure of the country by the main actors of governance decentralization, as something that has led to the ineffective way in the use of aid.

She also mentioned the shelving of ideas, lack of adequate revenues generated locally to support donor-aid projects and a change in behaviour on the part of aid recipients, as some of the other contributing factors hampering effective aid transactions.

The KMA boss called for a plan to be fashioned out to monitor aid-funded projects in the country so that a mutual progress assessment could be made in implementing agreed commitments on aid effectiveness.