Mr Charles A. Dzradosi, Social Policy Specialist, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), who called for a “positive discrimination” among the districts in funding allocation, said the “resource need to be allocated according to needs”.

The forum was on the theme: “Toward Equitable and Sustainable Development: Calling for Central to Review Resource Allocation to Districts.”  The 2017 DLT ranked Tema Metropolitan Assembly in the Greater Accra Region as the highest performing district with 80 points while Krachi East in the Volta Region was ranked the lowest with 50.66 points out of 216 districts nationwide.

South Dayi ranked the highest in the Volta Region with 69.1 points coming in 43rd position nationwide with the Region ranking ninth. Mr Dzradosi said though sectors under the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDA) had improved since 2014 when the DLT was launched, there was still a huge gap between the highest performing district and the lowest.

He said it was important that those gaps were bridged and those “ailing” assemblies provided with adequate funding to improve upon sectors where they fell short. Mr Dzradosi advised the districts to be more bothered about the “well-being of their citizen than an MMDA status”.

The Volta Regional Analysis pointed out that poverty could not be as a measure of development in some districts as a few districts were “moving ahead of themselves, leaving the rest of the Region in poverty”. The Afadjato South, Nkwanta North and the Adaklu districts showed remarkable improvement by moving 111, 100 and 75 notches higher respectively on the DLT from 2016 to 2017.

The report recommended that districts, sector ministries, departments and agencies as well as development partners investigated low performing indicators and development strategies for better allocation and implementation, monitoring and accountability.

Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, Volta Regional Minister, advised managers of the MDAs to be strategic in generating internally generated funds to develop their assemblies instead of being dependent on the DACF.

He asked them to conduct needs assessment and refocus their development plans on the sectors where their performance was low. Dr Letsa said the poor performance of the Region in the DLT was as a result of non-allocation of resources where they were needed the most.

 The forum also served as lesson-learning platform for the highest performing and lowest districts.  DLT assesses district assemblies on education, sanitation, water, health, security and governance.

The analysis indicated that most districts in the Volta Region scored low points in the sanitation and security sectors using the Open Defecation Free (ODF) and police coverage indicators.

By Sumaiya Salifu Saeed/Rosina Oyivor, GNA