Context
The Ghanaian government aims to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, democratic development, and the improvement of public services through decentralization. However, the subnational level is inadequately capable and involved in providing the necessary data for reporting processes and evidence-based policy-making.
Objective
Municipalities in selected districts have improved the collection, management, and data-based planning of their finances to implement the 2030 Agenda.
Approach
SfDR supports the implementation of decentralization reforms in Ghana nationwide in 60 municipalities. At the same time, a multi-level approach is applied to improve coordination between regional, local, and national actors. Co-financing agreements exist with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC).
The program operates in four areas of activity:
Strengthening the institutional capacity of municipalities in revenue management
Improving municipal planning and budgeting
Enhancing cooperation among central actors in the decentralization process
Advancing data-based development planning for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda
Impacts
With the software (dLRev) developed by SfDR, 43 partner districts increased their revenue by an average of 66% between 2015 and 2018. Forty-six partner districts have improved public participation processes, involving more than 24,000 citizens (47% of whom are women) in public decision-making at the district level since 2016. A local governance platform has been established for coordinated exchange between professionals and decision-makers in the decentralization process. A web-based monitoring and evaluation platform collects data from municipalities to feed it into the government's SDG reporting system.