Senegalese Minister commends Ghana for effective decentralisation
Dr Aliou Sow, Minister of Decentralisation and Local Development in Senegal, on Thursday commended Ghana for giving special attention to local development to strengthen communities at the grassroots.
He said Senegal was ready to adopt these best practices for her development, saying “Senegal practices a very different system and it is high time we start adopting and implementing practices of local governance that had been successful in other African countries like Ghana”.
Dr Sow made the commendation when he led a four-man delegation to call on Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, Minister of Local Development and Rural Development in Accra.
It was to formally thank the Sector Minister for his support at the just-ended African Ministers Conference on Decentralisation and Local Development, in Mozambique, strengthen established relationship and share some experience of government policies in Ghana.
Dr Sow invited Mr Ofosu-Ampofo to the up-coming ECOWAS Meeting of Ministers in Local Government in Senegal to interact and share best practices.
Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said Ghana had made positive strides in decentralisation process and it was important for other African countries to revive their system to accelerate development.
He said due to constitutional provision, the Districts Assemblies Common Fund was created as an avenue for the assemblies to receive funds from Central Government in addition to District Development Fund being established to encourage the assemblies to live up to expectation.
Mr Ofosu-Ampofo noted that a strong training regime had been set up for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to build the capacity of local government practitioners from all levels to have technical training in policy formulation, refinement and implementation.
He said “Local economic development had taken the centre stage of decentralisation and our focus is to look at how to promote economic development in the localities to put a stop to rural urban migration and maintain the youth in the localities”.
“African countries need self empowerment, we need to develop measures that would support empowerment of the youth since we can no longer depend on support from our development partners,” he added.
Source: GNA