SEND-GHANA, in collaboration with Star Ghana has organised a validation workshop on draft guidelines on the relationship between Traditional Authorities and District Assemblies under the theme, “Maximizing the participation of Non State Actors in local governance for increased accountability, transparency and responsiveness.’’

The event, held in Accra, was to review, discuss and verify modalities of the guidelines for District Assemblies and Non-State Actors (NSA) engagement.
Mr Daniel Adotey, Trade and Agriculture Programme Officer of SEND-GHANA, said the purpose of the validation was to subject the draft guidelines developed by the Institute of Local Government Studies draft guidelines (ILGS) for managing relations between assemblies and traditional authorities to wider stakeholder validation and acceptance in order to illicit new ideas, suggestions and recommendations from players in the local government system.

This would enable a joint agreement between the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs on the roles between Traditional Authorities and District Assemblies in local governance, he added.

Speaking at the validation workshop today, 23rd April, 2014, Siapha Kamara, the Chief Executive Officer of SEND-WEST AFRICA said, “The decentralisation decision taking, whether it is the assembly, whether it is at the Regional Coordinating Council level, whether it is at the Regional Level, there can be no other important discussion than that. This is because the process relates to and directly involves the citizenry.”

On his part, John Alexander Ackon, the Deputy Minister for Chieftaincy & Traditional Affairs mentioned that the meeting was an important one which helped to get traditional authorities involved in governance issues.
Participants were later put in group to discuss and analyze the problems identified in the proposed guidelines on managing relations between assemblies and traditional authorities at the local level.

The ILGS draft guidelines, which was meant to address the issues on Protocol-related issues between Assembly functionaries and traditional authorities at the local level was developed in 2013.

The guidelines were produced from consultations with traditional authorities and local governance in Ghana from individuals, as well as groups and stakeholders to monitor local development, infrastructure and service delivery initiatives.

It is also aimed at promoting human rights observance in order to reduce harmful socio-cultural practices in the society.
It is a tool for information dissemination, capacity building and knowledge management for traditional authorities at the district level.

The validation workshop was organised by SEND-GHANA and facilitated by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) with funding from Star-Ghana.