Communication is critical in any development process. Beyond its role as an empowerment tool, communication is used to promote people’s participation in development activities. Communication also helps to ensure that people have access to the information and knowledge needed to improve their lives. Particularly, citizens rely on knowledge and information in order to successfully respond to the opportunities and challenges of social, economic, cultural, political and technological changes. However, for knowledge and information to be useful in the development process, they must be effectively communicated to people. This brings to the fore the compelling relevance of development communication in development discourse. Though development communication is indispensable in sustainable development drive, many people still struggle to appreciate its underlying philosophical underpinnings, conceptual intentions, core principles and methodologies, hence their failure to make the concept practically relevant in development practice. Besides, the poor appreciation of the underpinnings of development communication contributes to the exclusion and isolation of many people especially the rural people from the process of development. What is more, the ever-increasing demand on the part of the citizenry for participatory development coupled with the significant advancement in technologies and globalization means that concerted efforts ought to be put in place by all development stakeholders including governments, research institutions, researchers, and civil society organizations to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of development communication. To achieve this, however, requires an increased discussion on what really constitutes development communication, and generate a sustained interest and commitment by all stakeholders to the cause of development communication, bearing in mind its unique principles and methodologies. Any confusion in theorizing and conceptualization of development communication potentially contributes to the seemingly unending complexity associated with efforts towards achieving sustainable development. It is in this regard that this paper contributes to the efforts to help bring clarity to the concept of development communication through a review of some existing literature.

The study examined the human resource (HR) capacity needs at the Assin South District Assembly using the descriptive and non-interventional research design. Purposive and quota sampling techniques were used to select 53 respondents with interview schedule and interview guide as the research instruments. The study revealed that the existing institutional arrangements in Ghana's decentralized government system did not allow the Assembly to properly address its HR capacity needs. Besides, poor staff attraction, low remuneration, poor accommodation facilities and inadequate training and development contributed to the Assembly's HR capacity needs. The study recommended that the government should decentralize the HR arrangements at the DAs to grant autonomy to the Personnel Management Department at the Assembly to actively address its own HR capacity needs. The government must effectively collaborate with the Assembly to provide adequate logistics, attractive incentives and social amenities so as to attract well-qualified personnel for smooth decentralization.

This study investigated the relevance of Cocoa Life Project interventions implemented by World Vision Ghana to the development of beneficiary communities using the Wassa East District as a case. The views of members who were mostly farmers, gari processors, soap makers, and members of village savings and loans associations from beneficiary communities were considered in a sequential-dependence mixed method research approach. A total of 406 respondents were selected using stratified, simple random and convenience sampling methods, with 84.2 percent response rate for the quantitative data. Research instruments were interview schedule and focus group discussion guide. Means and standard deviation were used for quantitative analysis whilst thematic analysis was done for the qualitative data. The study observed that WVG’s project interventions were highly relevant to education, business development, financial literacy, microcredit facilities, agriculture, and livelihood diversification within beneficiary communities. Also, awareness creation was one of the main communication tools WVG relied upon in promoting community development in the district. Though the interventions led to behaviour change, there were concerns with the overall change in behaviour within the communities. Besides, beneficiary communities had diverse development needs which could only be understood through appropriate and well-planned development communication strategies and approaches. As part of the recommendations, WVG should collaborate with Mondelez International and local authorities to come out with measures to improve upon job creation, behaviour change at the community level, health care services, and water and sanitation in Cocoa Life communities.

Decentralisation policy is important in ensuring effective delivery of development services at the local level. Governments across the globe utilize decentralised government system as a way of promoting people-centered development. Notwithstanding the value of decentralisation policy, governments struggle with the provision of development services at the local level. This suggests that more efforts need to be made to ensure the realisation of the dividends of decentralisation. However, this cannot be made without an  awareness of the challenges local actors face in the delivery of development services. This paper examines the views of stakeholders on the challenges associated with the delivery of development projects within the Ghanaian decentralised government system using the Shama District as a case in order to proffer some measures to improve the situation in the country using the sequential-explanatory mixed method design. Data were collected using interview guide and interview schedule. The study revealed that stakeholder management, involvement of project managers, defining project goals, assigning roles and responsibilities to key  officers, and monitoring and evaluation of projects were some of the measures the Assembly had put in place for the delivery of development projects in the district. However, communication was a serious challenge throughout the delivery of development projects in the district. The implications of the key findings for development communication have been highlighted in the study. As part of the recommendations of the study, the Assembly should put in place adequate measures to improve communication  throughout the various stages of development service delivery in the district.

Development helps to empower people and promote important changes in their lives. However, for development to occur there is the need for an educated population, physical and financial resources. Within this framework, governments and development partners, all over the world, initiate several approaches aimed at improving the wellbeing of their citizens. Despite the efforts made to improve the lives of people, there is a wide recognition that development projects provided at the local level sometimes fail to meet desired expectations for several reasons. This study sought to explore the views of local authorities and other key stakeholders of Shama District on the sustainability of development projects provided at the local level in order to suggest measures for improvement in a concurrent-dependence mixed method approach. The design of this study was descriptive and exploratory and a total of 79 respondents were selected for the study using purposive, convenience and census data collection techniques. Research instruments used are interview schedule and interview guide. Frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation were used for the quantitative analysis whilst thematic analysis was done for the qualitative data. The study found that even though there was a structure in place for the management of development projects in the District participation of key members was very low. It was also found that several factors such as political, economic, ethical, cultural and environmental affected the management of projects in the District. A number of factors were identified as affecting the sustainability of the development projects in the District. They include local participation in project planning, local ownership of projects, inclusion of local initiatives and knowledge in the planning of projects, transparency in the implementation of projects, accountability in the implementation of development projects, empowerment of the local people, and commitment among the local people. It is recommended that the District Assembly should provide more platforms to ensure active participation of all stakeholders in local decision making in relation to development projects.