Star-Ghana promotes citizens’ involvement in governance
Star-Ghana has signed a GH¢2.7 million contract with 20 community-based organisations (CBOs) to provide funds for projects aimed at promoting citizens’ participation in governance.
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The five-year initiative is a means to provide technical and funding support for the beneficiaries, including seven community media outfits, to carry out programmes in three key areas, namely, social inclusion, gender equality and media engagement.
Funding for the project will be provided by donor agencies, including the European Union (EU), the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and UKAid.
Signing
A ceremony was held in Accra yesterday, at which the management of STAR-Ghana signed the contract with representatives of the beneficiary organisations.
The Programmes Director of STAR-Ghana, Mr Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, and the Chairman of the Steering Committee, Prof. Akilagpa Sawyerr, signed for STAR-Ghana, while a representative each from the three categories initialled for their organisations.
The ceremony was followed by the commencement of a three-day orientation workshop meant to educate the beneficiaries on how to implement the projects.
Empowerment
Throwing more light on the initiative, Mr Amidu said the projects were focused on facilitating gender equality and social inclusion as a measure to empower traditionally excluded populations such as women, persons with disability (PWDs) and the rural poor.
“The community media organisations are expected to provide information that help the local people to engage with traditional authorities and district assemblies and to ensure that all voices are heard,” he said.
He said there were effective monitoring mechanisms in place to ensure that all organisations put the funds allocated to them to good use.
“The performance indicators at the end of the five years of the programme will be to see that citizens are able to hold duty bearers at the local level accountable and also participate effectively in governance,” he added.
Citizen participation
The way forward for promoting holistic national development, Prof. Sawyerr said, was for pragmatic steps to be taken to reduce the gender inequality gap.
“The way to do this is for citizens to be empowered to act to counteract obstacles to bridging the gap,” he added.
He said it was important for the government to look for alternative ways of sustaining the development initiatives after the funding agencies had folded up their activities.
The representatives of the beneficiary organisations pledged to put the funds they would receive to good use to ensure that the project objectives were met.
“Foreign aid will not be with us forever, but injustice, poverty and inequality will; so we can give an assurance that we will do all that we can to utilise the opportunity given us,” Mr Francis Ansong, who signed for beneficiaries of the social inclusion category, said.