NGO Organizes Capacity Building Training For State And Non-State Actors In Upper East

Garu (UE) , May 29,( Akapule) GNA- Rural Initiatives for Self Empowerment-Ghana (RISE-Ghana), a Non-Governmental Organization, has organized separate capacity building training programme for state and non-state actors in the Garu-Tempane and the Binduri District of the Upper East Region.

The training programme dubbed ” District Level Engagement on the State of Public Service Delivery in Ghana , under the auspices of” I am aware project”, is an initiative of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The training programme attracted key state actors and leadership of the various departments and agencies of the district assembly with mandate on water, education, sanitation, security, agriculture and governance as well as non-state actors such as Chiefs, Queen Mothers, Youth Associations, Cattle Dealers, Water Users Association, Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), School Management Committees (SMCs), Market Women, Civil Society Organization (CSOs) in the area of water, health, education and sanitation in the two districts.

Addressing the stakeholders at the separate functions, the Executive Director of RISE-Ghana , Mr Awal Ahmed, explained that as part of efforts to improve the quality of public service delivery in Ghana, CDD-Ghana is implementing a long term project dubbed “I am Aware”, which seeks to build the capacity of state actors to improve their services as well as empower non-state actors with user friendly data on the state of public service delivery across the 216 districts in Ghana to promote citizen-led evidenced advocacy towards improved services.

He stated that RISE-Ghana was selected to implement the project in the Upper East Region, and urged the stakeholders to put into practice what they had been acquired from the training in order to help improve upon the quality and equitable service deliveries at their respective areas.

The Participants were taken through their respective 2016 District Medium Term Development Plans (MTDP), the District League Table (DLT) and informed about the “I Am Aware” website as “ www.iamawareghana.com ” , where data on actual state of public services in the respective district was shown in comparison with neighboring districts.

He explained that the District League Table (DLT) which is a simple ranking tool for measuring the level of development in each of the 216 Districts in Ghana is an initiative of CDD-Ghana , UNICEF and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

“The service delivery areas that are measured include Health , Governance , Education , Security , Sanitation and Water . It does not aim to “name and shame” but aims to strengthen social accountability in development across Ghana’s 216 Districts so as to improve responsiveness in service delivery. It supports Government to better understand and monitor development across the country, while supporting citizens’ access to information and knowledge on their rights to development in their district”, he indicated.

He explained that ” I am Aware Project” , which is also an initiative of the CDD-Ghana targeting non-partisan citizen empowerment campaign involves the collecting, analyzing, archiving and disseminating free and user-friendly socio-economic data and data on the state of public goods and services in districts all across the country , particularly the poor and vulnerable.

He gave that website as “ www.iamawareghana.com ”, which he noted, had indicators such as the number of schools with water, number of writing and sitting spaces, number of water facilities among others focusing on all districts.

The state actors pledged to commit more resources to help improve upon quality health service delivery in their respective areas, whilst the non-state actors also pledged to undertake effective monitory and to demand accountability from the stakeholders

Plenary Sessions were held to collate participants’ views for an interface meeting between the state and non-state actors of the two districts.