Accra, Dec 16. GNA- The Adentan Municipal Assembly in the Greater Accra Region was on Thursday adjudged the overall top-ranked District in the 2020 District League Table (DLT).
This was announced at the launch of the 2020 DLT in Accra by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).
Sene East District in the Bono East Region was the lowest-ranked.
With a score of 94. 46 under the Water and Sanitation sector, the Adentan Assembly triumphed over the La Nkwantanang-Madina Municipal Assembly with a 1.43 per cent difference (93.03) placing it at the second position.
The La Dade-Kotopon Municipal Assembly placed tenth under this area with a score of 90.35.
The DLT, which is a tool for tracking national development, highlights districts that are performing well and ones, which are handicapped.
The DLT was developed by the NDPC in collaboration with the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and provides vision, goals and objectives, as well as strategic direction for the development of the nation.
The analysis, which was conducted in 2020 through gathered data from 261 districts, focused on 17 indicators.
The progress of the indicators were assessed based on the implementation of policies, programmes and projects towards national development.
The Report dubbed, “Generating Evidence For Addressing Unequal Access to Services and Development Opportunities for Children”, was prepared to operationalise the government’s coordinated programme for economic and social development.
The analysis focused on five key indicators namely: Education; Water and Sanitation; Heath, Governance and Information Communication Technology.
Under the Education sector, the Ga West Municipal in the Greater Accra Region emerged as the top-ranked District with the highest score of 95.54 while the lowest-ranked District was Ayawaso North also in the Greater Accra Region with an 11.13 score.
With 77.44 scores, the Shai-Osudoku District in Greater Accra recorded the Highest Score under the Health sector while the lowest-ranked District was Ablekuma West Municipal also located in the Greater Accra Region with a score of 3. 98.
In the area of Information and Communication Technology, the Ablekuma North Municipal in the Greater Accra Region recorded the highest score of 94. 70 while the Mion District in the Northern Region had a 0.00 score as the lowest-ranked District under this sector.
In the area of Governance, Mampong Municipal, Saboba District and Ayawaso West Municipal in the Greater Accra, Northern and Greater Accra Regions ranked first, with a full score of 100.00 while Savelugu Municipal in the Northern Region recorded the lowest score of 0.00 in the implementation of its annual action plan.
Meanwhile, the DLT revealed that most of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA’s) in the country were not giving much attention to the issue of sanitation.
To that end, Dr. Kojo Mensah-Abrampa, the Director-General of NDPC, speaking at the launch charged the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development (MLGDRD) and the Local Assemblies to focus on measures that would address the shortfalls.
“I am also very happy that we focus on water and sanitation. The water we are doing good but sanitation we are not bridging the gap so if you look at the League Table you will see there is the need for a lot of efforts to be channelled there,” he said.
Dr. Mensah-Abrampa also challenged partners to look at the five key indicators of Education; Water and Sanitation; Health, Communication and Information Communication Technology to get an E-Guidance that would help develop specific guidelines to the identified gap.
In 2014, UNICEF introduced the DLT index in collaboration with the CDD-Ghana.
This initiative has supported NDPC’s role in monitoring and evaluating development outcomes at the subnational level, by highlighting the inequalities and disparities in the well-being being of people across the country.
The DLT provided a multi-sectoral, integrated assessment of how Ghana was developing across all its 261 districts at the time of the report based on selected sectors and indicators.
It is expected that the DLT would be used by MDA’s, District Assemblies, Members of Parliament, Non-Governmental Organisations and Development partners to mobilise resources for the development of lower-ranked or lagging districts within specific sectors to enhance equitably resource allocation, in order not to leave any district behind in the march towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
GNA