In a significant development for Ghana’s governance and accountability efforts, a five-year USAID-funded programme named the ‘Ghana Performance Accountability Activity’ has been launched in Tamale. This $17.3 million initiative is designed to ensure that citizens can demand responsive service delivery, marking a crucial step in enhancing governance transparency and accountability.
The ‘Ghana Performance Accountability Activity’ aims to build upon existing Ghanaian strategies, programs, and capacities while leveraging support from USAID and other donors. Its primary goal is to reinforce Ghana’s ongoing efforts to promote transparent, accountable, and inclusive governance. This ambitious project covers 70 districts across ten regions, encompassing 46 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Northern, Savannah, North East, Upper East, and Upper West regions.
Alhassan Mohammed Awal, the Executive Director of Norsaac, highlighted the persistent challenges faced by Ghana in delivering essential services, including education, water, sanitation, healthcare, agriculture, and fisheries. He acknowledged that previous donor-supported efforts to enhance service quality and accountability had yielded unsustainable results.
Awal emphasized the Ghana Performance Accountability Activity’s distinctive features, including inclusivity, sustainability, collaboration, and behavior-driven approaches, which are poised to deliver both immediate and long-lasting impacts.
Deputy Chief of Party Linda Ofori-Kwafo underscored the project’s core objectives, which include increasing citizens’ demand for responsive service delivery, enhancing government service efficiency through robust regulatory standards, and empowering local-level public service providers to maintain quality standards. The project’s strategy involves strengthening the connection between Ghanaian values and performance standards, while building the capacity of government partners, ministries, agencies, and targeted district assemblies, as well as civil society and community-based organizations. Through behavior-led capacity-building and institutional strengthening interventions, this initiative aims to create a more accountable and responsive governance framework in Ghana.
