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As part of efforts to empower the citizenry to demand for quality service delivery from providers, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in partnership with Democracy International (D I), has held a sensitisation workshop for stakeholders from the Western Region on the Performance Accountability Activity (PAA).The PAA is a five year project being funded by USAID to support local organisations, women, youth groups, traditional and religious leaders to advocate for improved public service delivery.
As part of the project, service providers would be supported to be more responsive to citizens demand for quality service particularly in health, water and sanitation, agriculture, fisheries and basic education.
Addressing the participants, Programme Officer of PAA, Abraham Ahenkorah-Asare, said the project would focus on building the capacity of Government of Ghana partners, specifically the 70 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) benefitting from the project.
These districts were selected from the Upper West, Upper East, Northern, North East, Savannah, Oti, Volta, Western and Western North Regions and civil society organizations (CSOs) to understand, practice and implement "behaviour-led capacity building and institutional strengthening interventions that would drive immediate and sustainable impacts on improving the accountability of local governance.”
In the Western North Region, he said, Bodi and Akontombra districts had been selected to implement the project.
It would be implemented by ComCA Ghana.
The Acting Coordinating Director for Western North Regional Coordinating Council, Suleiman Ali, said the regional coordinating council would support the initiative in order to help identify the disconnects between citizens and the government agencies, obstacles to quality service delivery and to provide collective solutions to solve them.
He said the project would also provide additional platforms for citizens to participate fully in policy making processes and monitor the implementation of government projects. "The government alone can not do all, but through further collaborations and partnerships with international communities and CSOs and other stakeholders, we can achieve more," he said.
He commended the USAID for their continuous support for the country's democracy and DI for choosing the Western North Region to be part of the selected regions.
