By Caleb Kuleke
Ho, July 10, GNA – Mr Sulemana Hor Gbana, the Southern Programme Influencing and Impact Area (SPIIA) Manager of Plan International Ghana, has emphasised the need to strengthen community-based programmes for accelerated development.
He said building the capacity of people at the local level would ensure their effectiveness in identifying, prioritising and planning to address challenges confronting them and lead to sustainable development.
Mr Gbana was speaking at a programme at Ve-Golokwati in the Afadzato South District of the Volta region, where communities within Plan International Ghana’s operational areas submitted their Development Plan to the district assembly.
Plan International Ghana supported the decentralised units of the assembly to engage the communities to come out with a Community Development Plan as a framework for development interventions.
The Development Plan was written following the due processes in terms of selection and orientation for community representatives.
Mr Gbana said they believed that when challenges confronting communities were documented with proposed interventions, it made it easier for the communities and stakeholders to take steps to address the situations for improved lives.
He said one way of accelerating growth at the local level was to engage communities to diagnose issues affecting them and also encourage them to be actively involved in providing solutions to the issues.
The Manager said communities were a critical part of their programmes delivery and that informed their broader consultation when they were developing their five-year country strategy, which runs from 2021 to 2025.
He said assemblies received input from the people when drawing up their medium-term development plans, so the community development plan submitted to the assembly was to help it in executing its mandate.
Mr Fabian Vorvor, District Coordinating Director of the Afadzato South, commended Plan International Ghana for the initiative, saying the document would help guide the assembly to deliver better services to the people.
He said Plan International Ghana had been instrumental in the district in improving the lives of the people through its programmes and that coming out with the community development plan was another milestone.
Mr Vorvor pledged the Assembly’s commitment to coordinating and harmonising the development plans to implement them as a single unit.
Various stakeholders at the programme including Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Ghana Health Service, Social Welfare, and National Commission for Civic Education, Assembly members and traditional authorities also thanked Plan for the initiative.
GNA