Background

The Democracy and Governance (DG) Program supports Ghana's efforts to consolidate democracy by enhancing civic participation in democratic processes and ensuring that local and national governments are responsive to the interests of citizens. In Ghana, citizen input into the decision-making processes of Parliament at the national level and local government at the community level, is extremely limited.

USAID/Ghana Governing Justly and Democratically Activities

The DG program focuses on building the capacity of citizen groups to advocate for reforms necessary to advance development and strengthening Parliament and local government's capacity to engage with citizens.

Strengthening the Legislative Function/Legal Framework: At the national level, Parliament is the institution with the most potential for channeling civil society concerns and holding the President and his administration accountable. Improving the legislative procedures; increasing Parliament's access to civic input and research; and strengthening Parliament's capacity to review the national budget and debate public finance issues are USAID's areas of focus. The objective is to transform Parliament into a forum for dynamic debate and exchange on key areas of public concern and improve Parliament's oversight of the executive, particularly the budget process.

Supporting Democratic Local Governance and Decentralization: USAID supports efforts to build the capacity of local government, including District Education Offices, and school management committees to respond to civic input in the planning, budgeting, and monitoring of development initiatives. This includes support for local citizens' participation in planning and budgeting as well as assistance to local governments to develop policies that involve citizens in developing budgets, setting local fees and taxes, and holding public hearings prior to budget adoption. Once local governments have received the necessary training and developed policies that encourage citizen participation, they are in a better position to seek and use citizen input in setting priorities, establishing performance based plans and budgets, generating income, and managing resources. The goal is for citizen groups and local governments to work together to identify innovative ways to resolve local problems.

Strengthening Civil Society: USAID works with citizen groups to strengthen their ability to advocate. USAID facilitates the creation of civic unions (CUs), powerful alliances of existing associations and citizen groups, including associations of hairdressers, tailors, teachers, Christian mothers, carpenters, farmers and youth. USAID trains CUs to identify and discuss priorities and problems, particularly in education but also related to health and economic growth, with local government. USAID's interventions include support for local citizens' participation in planning and budgeting as well as assistance to local governments to develop policies that will involve citizens in developing budgets, setting local fees and taxes, and holding public hearings prior to budget adoption. The emphasis is on assisting citizen groups to develop a collaborative relationship with local government, recognizing that local government cannot do it alone. This activity targets youth, marginalized groups such as Muslims and people with disabilities, and communities affected by mining industries.

In addition to the three component areas, USAID's DG program pursues targets of opportunity that fall under its DG objective. These include the following:

The Ghana Responsible Mining Alliance: The Alliance joins the industry and development expertise, experience, and resources of Gold Fields Ghana, Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd. and USAID in a commitment to build prosperous, healthy and lasting communities in the mining areas of Asutifi and Wassa West districts of Ghana, and develop a roadmap for responsible mining. Through the Alliance, Gold Fields and Newmont, with USAID, are moving beyond contributions to investments in sustainable development, including local government technical capacity to support local economic growth, and improvements in how they do business in mining communities.

Promoting Transparency and Accountability: USAID is supporting efforts of Ghana's Auditor General's Department to strengthen asset declaration of public officers. In addition, USAID is facilitating the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice's (CHRAJ) efforts to build public support and understanding of the new conflict of interest regulation and efforts to increase information sharing between accountability institutions.

Promoting and Protecting the Rights of People with Disabilities: USAID is facilitating the passage and implementation of improved legislation for people living with disabilities. USAID is also building the capacity of local disabled people's organizations, increasing political participation of people with disabilities, and promoting and protecting the human rights of people with disabilities to encourage their inclusion in national development efforts .

Mitigating Conflict and Support for Peace: USAID is supporting a joint United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) initiative aimed at bringing together stakeholders in the three Northern Regions of Ghana in a collective effort to attain a lasting peace in the area. This project is in response to the increased number of chieftaincy and other conflicts that have become politicized and as a result threaten overall peace and stability as evidenced by the Yendi crisis in 2002.

Highlights of USAID/Ghana Democracy and Governance Success Through 2005

• Increased Civil Society Engagement with Parliament: In 2005, 80 percent of bills passed contained amendments, and 81 percent of non-budget trailer bills included civic input. This illustrates the success of USAID's efforts to increase civil society's engagement with Parliament.
  
  
• Strengthened Civil Society: USAID supported the creation of 12 civic unions and trained them to constructively engage local government. Within these unions, women wings have been formed to ensure that women actively participate in the civic union. In 2005, these groups successfully advocated on 14 issues.
  
  
• Enhanced Democratic Local Governance: Local governments are now working more closely with citizen groups to collect revenues and identify new revenue streams, and have adopted policies that require citizen involvement in budget planning.
  
  
• Supported Credible Elections Processes: The 2004 national elections, which enjoyed 85 percent voter turn out, were the first in Africa that a tactile voting guide was available for all visually impaired voters, and saw an increase in the number of women members of Parliament (MPs) from 19 to 25. USAID supported the fielding of over 7,000 domestic election observers, the training of political party agents, the development of a new voter registration roll, the participation of women, and the training of poll workers in the use of the tactile ballot.