UNDP Poverty Report 2000

Decentralizing to Districts

Shortly after the World Summit for Social Development, Ghana designated the National Development Planning Commission as the co-ordinator of its poverty reduction activities, and UNDP helped establish a Poverty Coordinating Unit within the commission. In addition, the government formed an inter-ministerial committee on poverty.

Previous projects had been sectoral, duplicating activities and making national monitoring difficult. Now all poverty-related projects have to be registered and cleared with the planning commission, improving the complementarity among projects.

Greater Local Decision-Making

The restructuring of local governments has given more scope for addressing local concerns without prior clearance from the regional governments. The planning commission provides general guidelines for the direction of the country's development, while each of the 110 districts now decides its development needs and priorities within these guidelines.

Of the national budget - known as the Common Fund - 5% is distributed to districts, which are instructed to use a fifth of their allocation for poverty reduction activities. Districts also raise revenues through local taxes and have the authority to negotiate directly with donors for district-level projects.

One of UNDP's projects in Ghana is a pilot for participatory development in five districts. It seeks to build management capacity for better poverty reduction activities, develop people's skills for employment and income generation and empower women. Key managers have been trained in computer skills and in programme formulation and analysis. Civil society organizations and assembly members have received training in participatory methods and community mobilization.

Through district committees of a cross-section of people, communities formulate poverty reduction plans. The accompanying budgets are submitted to a separate committee to determine the sources of funding.

Devolution Far from Complete

The obvious strength of this process is that communities can have a greater say in the development activities in their districts - and that plans for national development can be more responsive to people's needs. But the process is far from complete.

Some of the plans from districts are the creation of consultants or senior district officials, not the communities. Plans are often presented as completed documents to communities, which approve them without developing any real commitment to the outcome. Although this process is more participatory than formulating national plans, democratic decision-making by communities is limited. This might change as communities become more aware of their rights and more active in articulating their needs.

One constraint on decentralization is the reluctance of qualified people to transfer to poorer areas. Opportunities for their families are more limited, and the system does not allow them much professional mobility. Successful district officials now have less chance to be promoted to regional governments. And because of the shortage of trained people, district officials who perform well tend to be swamped.

Although the districts now have significant authority, they still lack capacity to carry out their new responsibilities. The UNDP-supported project in five pilot districts can help, but another 105 districts need such capacity building.