Chiefs launch charter on natural resources governance

Osahene Kwaku Aterkyi II, Kukuomhene and President, Brong-Ahafo Regional House of Chiefs, to actively support the proper utilization and sustainability of forest and natural resources in the region.

Osahene Aterkyi was speaking at the launch of the Regional House of Chiefs’ Charter on Forest and Natural Resources Management in Sunyani on Thursday.

He highlighted the enormous and positive contribution of the chiefs amidst challenges to forest governance and implored them to use the charter to enhance their organizational capacity to provide information on forest and natural resource management for the benefit of their people.

The Charter is on traditional authorities’ transparency and accountability in forest and natural resource governance, with the theme, “Promoting Environmental Transparency”.

It was produced by the Centre for Indigenous and Organisational Development (CIKOD) and funded by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a Ghanaian and German Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) respectively, that are among others, promoting sustainable environment and development.

Osahene Aterkyi underscored the need for the charter to eliminate all the ambiguities in the utilization of natural resources and encourage the House to use the charter to their advantage for other house of chiefs in the country to emulate.

Mr. Wilberforce Laate, Deputy Executive Director of CIKOD, enumerated the NGO’s objectives as promoting the participation of traditional authorities and indigenous institutions in local level development, natural resource governance and community organizational development.

He stated that the Charter would strengthen the traditional leaders to engage with formal government structures in facilitating community-led development interventions to ensure sustainable management and the use of forest resources.

Mr. Laate revealed that many people held the view that traditional leaders received so much royalty without accounting to their subjects, disclosing that only nine per cent of the royalty went to the traditional authorities.

“It is in pursuance of this objective that CIKOD in collaboration with the House of Chiefs through a pilot project in Kukuom, has developed this charter to guide and regulate the management of revenue from natural resources for transparency in their traditional areas”, he explained.

The CIKOD Deputy Executive Director said the Charter would also justify the relevance and legitimacy of traditional authorities in the management of natural resources in Ghana to contribute to transparency and accountability in governance

Source: GNA