Ambassador Frederic Clavier (middle) with H.E Julius Debrah, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (right), and H.E. Alhassan Azong, Minister of State for Public Sector Reform, after signing the agreement.
The French government, represented by the French Ambassador in Ghana, H.E Fredric Clavier, on Tuesday, July 30, 2014, signed a financing agreement with the Ministry for Local Government and Rural Development and Ministry of State for Public Sector Reform to implement a development project aimed at increasing accountability and citizen participation in governance.
The project, dubbed “Strengthening the accountability of Ghana’s central and local administrations”, would seek to initiate a culture of accountability among policymakers by providing practical and concrete support to specific mechanisms, both at the central and local levels, involving the full range of stakeholders.
Addressing the media after the signing, Ambassador Clavier said that the project aims to reinforce public administrative reforms and make the realities involved in their implementation clearer to policy makers.
According to him, the three-tier initiative would focus on the consolidation of good practice in the general functioning of the public administration, adding that, through this initiative, citizen participation in governance would be enhanced since it would help provide a better understanding of issues relating to administrative reforms and the tools at its disposal to enable them hold policymakers accountable.
Ambassador Clavier observed that state and non-state actors could effectively participate in the development process only through the implementation of governing principles such as consensus building, rule of law, participation, transparency, efficiency, responsiveness and accountability, which he described as the “pillars of democratic governance”.
The €800,000 development project would be financed through the French Solidarity Priority Fund (SPF) and will be implemented for three years in three modules, starting in July 2014.
The first component, to be implemented by the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), will consolidate the public sector accountability at central level, the second component, to be implemented by IGLS; will consolidate at local level in the Western region; while the final component which will allow for innovation for social accountability, is to be implemented by the Center for Democratic Development (CDD).
The financing agreement of the SPF was signed on behalf of the government of Ghana by H.E Julius Debrah, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, and H.E. Alhassan Azong, Minister of State for Public Sector Reform at a press briefing at the residence of France in Accra.
Solidarity Priority Fund (SPF), also Fond de Solidarité Prioritaire in French, is a major tool instituted by the French government to finance cooperation actions of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the framework of the policy of development aid.
By: Prince Asare, Diplomatic Call
