Madam Patience Sally Kuma, the Upper West Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has appealed to women in the Region to initiate development projects to benefit them and their children.
She explained that the over-reliance on men and government for the establishment of development projects had not favoured or benefited women and their children as expected.
Madam Kuma made the appeal at a Social Auditing forum organised by the Wa Municipal Directorate of the NCCE for residents of Kpongu Community in the Wa Municipality to advocate for increased accountability and a reduction in corruption in Ghana.
She noted that women were always marginalised when it came to the formulation and implementation of development policies and programmes and as such their real development needs and those of their children were misdirected.
“We know our development needs and those of our children, and so time has come for us to take up the challenges and take our destiny into our hands and initiate development to enhance our total developments,” Madam Kuma pointed out.
The NCCE Regional Director urged the women to lobby civil society organisations and international donor countries and government institutions for financial support to initiate development projects.
Madam Kuma also encouraged women to patronise the government’s development programmes and policies to improve livelihoods.
They should also take the maintenance of projects initiated seriously.
Mr Isaac S.Y. Tadoh, the Wa Municipal Director of the NCCE, said the Social Auditing Engagement should not be regarded as find faults platforms or opportunity to witch-hunt duty bearers.
He said social auditing should be considered as an opportunity to promote discourse among citizens and office bearers on planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects and programmes.
It is also to provide opportunities to persons outside government operations to influence policy-making, implementation and evaluation, and to engender community ownership of projects, deepening effective and efficient delivery of social services to communities in need.
Mr Tadoh urged community members to focus on community needs assessment and prioritisation to make the right choices of their pressing needs and to develop community action plans.
He appealed to community members to delegate individuals and groups in the implementation of community-initiated projects or action to address the identified need.
“These roles could be in the form of the provision of land, communal labour, using the services of local artisans, organising fund-raising activities or seeking assistance from the Wa Municipal Assembly,” he said.
The Social Auditing Engagement is a product of the Accountability, Rule of Law and Anti-corruption Programme (ARAP) initiative to promote community ownership of development projects and policies, increase awareness of the operations of the local government and empower the citizenry to demand accountability from duty bearers.
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