Public Expectations in Local Governance: Unit Committees under Ghana’s Decentralised System

Botchwey, Gabriel

doi:10.4314/gjds.v14i1.9

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Older people were approached in their respective homes with the assistance of a contact person (an assembly member) who lived in the study area. An assembly member is a locally‐elected representative who performs functions, including lobbying for support on behalf of his/her community at the District or Municipal level, and assisting in the supervision of community programmes and projects (Botchwey, 2017). This contact person helped the researchers to identify about 33 households that each had an older person as a member.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The unmet needs of older people in Nsawam, Ghana

Abekah-Carter

Awuviry-Newton²,

Oti

et al. 2022

Health Social Care Comm

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Although healthy life expectancy is projected to be increasing among older people in Ghana, a high proportion and number of older people will live with functional disability, warranting their need for long‐term care. We explored the expressions used by older people to describe their needs and preference of care and support. Using the descriptive qualitative approach, 14 older people were engaged via semi‐structured interviews, and the data were analysed thematically. The study found that older people desired a decent accommodation, preferential healthcare, adequate nutrition, and an opportunity to interact with their peers at social functions. A provision of sufficient financial assistance, adequate healthcare, the periodic organisation of social and group events for older people, and the availability of home care and support could help older people address these needs. The paper reveals the need for interventional research on how a model incorporating social, health and environmental factors even during a pandemic can address older people's varying needs.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The unmet needs of older people in Nsawam, Ghana

Abekah-Carter

Awuviry-Newton²,

Oti

et al. 2022

Health Social Care Comm

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“…Decentralization reforms are part of a broader project initiated by the World Bank as a paradigm shift from top-down command-and-control systems. In 1988, Ghana's decentralization policy was launched to transfer power, functions, and responsibilities regarding land use and spatial planning from the central government to the district assembly or spatial planning authority [35][36][37]. The 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462) and the Land-Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016 (Act 925) provide the legal framework of Ghana's decentralization policy [35].…”

Section: Decentralized Land-use Planning and Cadastral Survey In Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 1992 Constitution designates the district assembly as the highest planning authority at the local level. The district assembly is responsible for physical/spatial planning of customary land in conjunction with customary authorities, granting approval of all planning schemes before they can take effect and granting of planning and building permits to control development [35][36][37]. Ghana's decentralization policy aims to ensure effective participation of local citizens in land-use planning to enhance the judicious use of land to improve quality of life, promote health and safety in respect of human settlement [6,35,38].…”

Section: Decentralized Land-use Planning and Cadastral Survey In Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Decentralization: Competition in Land Administration and Management in Ghana

Adam

Adams

Gerber

2021

Land

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Decentralization policy forms part of a broader global ideology and effort of the international donor community in favor of subsidiarity and local participation, and represents a paradigm shift from top-down command-and-control systems. Since 2003, the formalization of property rights through titling became an integral component of decentralized land administration efforts in Ghana. The creation of new forms of local government structures and the related changes in the distribution of responsibilities between different levels of government have an impact on natural resource management, the allocation of rights, and the unequal distribution of powers. This paper aims to understand how decentralization reforms modify the balance of power between public administration, customary authorities, and resource end-users in Ghana. Decentralization’s impact is analyzed based on two case studies. Relying on purposive and snowball sampling techniques, and mixed methods, we conducted 8 key informant interviews with local government bureaucrats in land administration, 16 semi-structured interviews with allodial landholders, 20 biographic interviews and 8 focus group discussions with small-scale farmers. The interviews analyzed the institutions and the roles of actors in land administration. Our case studies show that decentralization has the tendency to increase local competition in land administration where there are no clear distribution of power and obligation to local actors. Local competition and elitism in land administration impact the ability of small-scale farmers to regularize or formalize land rights. Thus, the paper concludes that local competition and the elitism within the land administration domain in Ghana could be the main obstacles towards decentralization reforms.

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“… 4 Unit Committees are the lowest statutory administrative units in Ghana, responsible for the registration of births and deaths, monitoring the implementation of self-help and development projects, acting as focal point to discuss local problems, overseeing the performance of District Assembly members, etc. (Legislative Instrument 1967, Fourth Schedule, Regulation 25 (2010) cited in Botchwey 2017 :181). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Spatialized Knowledge of Threats to Forest Conservation in Ghana’s High Forest Zone

Somuah

Ros-Tonen

Baud

2021

Environmental Management

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Although deforestation rates are declining, protected forest areas remain under threat. While the importance of spatialized (‘mapped’) community knowledge for conservation planning is acknowledged in scientific literature, the integration of such knowledge in forest governance and conservation planning remains scarce, particularly in Ghana. This paper aims to make clear how participatory spatial knowledge tools and geographic information systems can be used to assess the threats to forest conservation in Ghana’s high forest zone. The results show that holders of spatial community-embedded knowledge not only sketch-mapped the location and spatial distribution of the threats to forest conservation in the forest reserves, but also provided information on the actors they perceived to be causing such threats. Such information is not available in forest inventories conducted by the responsible government agencies, but is needed to focus conservation strategies and make them more effective. Maps with the anticipated condition of the forest in 10 years’ time furthermore provided insights which can help governance actors to deal with the underlying drivers of forest degradation. This suggests that local spatialized knowledge needs to be integrated into the institutional arrangements for the governance of forested landscapes, and that such governance cannot be effective without the inclusion of local people’s knowledge. Due consideration is however to be given to the conditions that ensure that spatialized knowledge production and its use in landscape management decision-making occurs in an inclusive manner.

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Public Expectations in Local Governance: Unit Committees under Ghana’s Decentralised System

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

The unmet needs of older people in Nsawam, Ghana

The unmet needs of older people in Nsawam, Ghana

The Politics of Decentralization: Competition in Land Administration and Management in Ghana

Local Spatialized Knowledge of Threats to Forest Conservation in Ghana’s High Forest Zone

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