Local Government Ministry to review rural development policies

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development is considering a review of community development policies to enhance national development.

It is aimed at reforming rural development strategies to meet current challenges.

Director of the Department of Community Development, Paul Avorkah, says socio-economic changes make such initiative imperative.

“The voluntary spirit in our communities are now lost because of social change, so as a department we are trying to see how we can restructure so we go back to the communities and try to bring back that spirit for development …We shall consider the past, present and the future in this restructuring,” he said.

Addressing the 5^th Graduation of the Rural Development College at Kwaso in the Ashanti Region, Mr. Avorkah stated that the community development project targets human resource empowerment as a way of alleviating poverty and developing local communities.

He says with continuous education and enrollment of human development policies, community development targets will be achieved.

“We seek to empower members of the community through capacity building, training and resource mobilization so that the communities can meet by themselves, discuss their development need and take actions to solve them; we want to improve the socio-economic lives of these people,” he stressed.

The restructuring under consideration will also tackle the challenges of Rural Development Colleges nationwide. The streamlining of the educational system will ensure the nurturing of quality rural development officers to augment the work of the ministry.

Principal of the Rural Development College at Kwaso, Solomon Mensah, says the institute faces infrastructural challenges as the student population continues to expand.

Since inception in 1949, the institution is yet to see a major infrastructural improvement.

“We do rehabilitate the buildings on regular occasions to be able to accommodate us; we have not received any new facilities since the school started but we continue to train students to help develop the country,” he said.

The institution hopes to receive the necessary accreditations to run degree programs in the future to improve rural development.