By Rebecca Armah
Tema, Dec. 11, GNA – The Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), in collaboration with the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), has held a stakeholder engagement on effective inclusivity and gender-responsive service delivery by district assemblies.
The engagement held under the Partnership for Municipal Innovation-Women in Local Leadership (PMI-WILL) project saw the stakeholders discussing emerging issues on local governance.
Mr Zechariah Langnel, a lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School and consultant to the PMI-WILL, said the project is being implemented by NALAG in partnership with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by Global Affairs Canada.
He explained that the project targets society’s vulnerable, especially women and children with disabilities, to empower them to actively participate in decision-making in the country’s local governance.
According to him, the project was being implemented in five selected municipalities and districts: Kwawu West in Nkwakwa, Atebubu Amanti, Nadom, Saboba, and Tema.
He indicated that participants were equipped with vital lessons to enable them to be part of the informed decision-making by the local government through community engagement and community mobilisation, among other things.
“We are saying government projects should be community driven; in other words, the government should make sure the projects brought to the community meet the demands and needs of the people living in that area. So, the government should not provide a project that community members are not interested in,” he said.
He added that community members could also initiate their projects by coming together to tackle some of their community issues instead of waiting solely on the government to provide.
“The well-to-do members within the community that have money can come together and provide the needed project for themselves to release the government from pressure and delay. This will also help them to be owners of the project,” he added.
Mr Sherrif Amarh, the NALAG project coordinator, said his outfit conducted research that revealed that women, children, and the marginalised groups were not actively participating in the local governance system.
“Our research shows that people are not partaking in the local governance system, but whenever the assembly authorities are asked, they turn up giving good assurances, but when it comes to the community members, it’s not so,” he noted.
Mr Amarh said the engagement was therefore organised to educate the stakeholders on how important their views were to the assembly in helping in the planning and implementation of the policies in their communities to benefit them.
He urged the assemblies to add the community members when taking decisions and implementing policies to help the local government sector and for better community development.
GNA