The workshop brought together budget and planning officials from five Assemblies: Kumasi Metropolitan, Kassena-Nankana West District, Ketu South Municipal, Sagnerigu Municipal, and Sefwi-Wiaso Municipal. The sessions aimed to enhance their capacity in SDG budgeting and expenditure reporting, ensuring that local development planning and spending are better aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Through a series of technical and practical sessions, participants were guided on how to develop their respective 2024 SDG Budget and Expenditure Reports. These reports outline the Assemblies’ budget allocations, expenditure patterns, and the degree to which their local activities contribute to SDG targets. The MMDAs were encouraged to provide verifiable evidence to support all data, keep reports concise and user-friendly, and ensure that their expenditures align with both SDG targets and local priorities.

Speaking during one of the sessions, Huzaif Musah, National Coordinator – Tax for SDGs at UNDP Ghana, emphasized the importance of empowering local governments to own and drive the implementation of the SDGs. “When you want to reach the farthest behind, which is the main pillar of the work we do at UNDP Ghana, you work with MMDAs. That’s what SDG localization is about: empowering local governments to own and drive the SDGs. Through data, we can see where Assemblies invest, what their priorities are, and how these align with national SDG targets. This exercise may seem small, but it’s designed to catalyze important conversations on financing, accountability, and local ownership of the SDGs,” he noted.

The Workshop on SDG Budgeting and Expenditure Reporting forms part of ongoing efforts under the Integrated Assembly Financing Framework (IAFF), a framework that support assemblies to bring together all current financing sources and also identify novel sources of financing.

By building the capacity of local assemblies in SDG budgeting and expenditure tracking, UNDP Ghana and the Ministry of Finance are helping to promote transparency and results-driven local governance, ultimately accelerating Ghana’s progress toward achieving the SDGs.