The Local Government and Rural Development Ministry has signed an agreement with Municipal Assemblies to implement the Ghana Secondary Cities Support Programme (GSCSP).
The programme is to replace the Local Government Capacity Support Project (LGCSP), which ended in 2018 and has been designed to improve urban development management and basic urban services in 25 participating municipal assemblies.
It was negotiated by the Local Government Ministry in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and the World Bank.
GSCSP was approved by Cabinet, Parliament and the Board of the World Bank and came into force on February 5, 2019.
It is a $100 million credit facility based on the World Bank’s Programme for Result (PforR).
DAILY GUIDE understands that the programme would focus on delivering results.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Accra, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama said “As the name suggests, participating assemblies will only receive grants based on the results they produce.”
She added that “its focus is to ensure that officers in the participating assemblies become effective urban managers and need to be at their best to be able to access the funds available at the various performance assessment levels.”
According to her, “The other participating institutions are the Environmental Protection Agency, the Land Valuation Division of the Lands Commission, Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
The Minister observed that the then LGCSP was implemented by 46 Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies and delivered development interventions covering the educational, health, economy, justice and security sectors and capacity building in urban management.
She said “the focus on secondary cities and greater urban areas” of the GSCSP aligns with the country’s commitment to urbanization as a strategy for sustainable development.
This, according to the Minister, also feeds into the New Urban Agenda Document and the Sustainable Development Goal 11 which focuses on delivering resilient urban cities and communities.
She said GSCSP will be functional within the framework of the National Decentralization Action Plan and the National Urban Policy and Action Plan and will adopt the performance-based grant system for the release of Urban Development Grants.
By Melvin Tarlue