The Asante Akyem North Municipality in the Ashanti Region has been ranked first in the 2018/2019 District league table.
It obtained a total score of 100% followed by the Sunyani Municipal Assembly which scored 98.5%.
The table published annually by UNICEF in partnership with the Centre for Democratic Development is aimed at highlighting disparities in social development among districts.
[contextly_sidebar id=”wq4Pt7RQVICUL7pBoUIfcYRvfbeQPRNh”]This year’s edition ranked all 216 districts in relation to key indicators such as education, health, water, sanitation and child protection based on existing data on the then ten regions of Ghana.
A worrying trend the report highlighted was the seeming widened gap that exists between the districts that were performing well and others performing poorly.
This was evident in Asante Akyem North’s 100% score as against the 0% score of the last district, Asokore Mampong.
The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has thus charged the Municipal and Metropolitan and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to allocate resources to areas of priority for their residents.
According to the ministry, it is only through strategic allocation of resources that assemblies can actualize the needed development.
Speaking at the launch of the district league table II on Tuesday, Deputy Sector Minister, Kwasi Boateng Adjei expressed worry over the seeming lack of interest by citizens in the development of MMDAs.
To address this disturbing situation, Mr. Adjei admonished MMDAs to be strategic in their resource allocation.
“This will help in the redistribution of resources. So, if District Assemblies get resources they should be able to prioritize their developmental needs. This will provide a vital source of information for the Districts. So, if the District is not performing well let’s say in the area of sanitation then certainly, they should be able to allocate some of their resources in that area to influence the level of development in that area.”
Highlights of report
A major highlight of the findings was the regional analysis of the status of open defecation in the districts.
On this level, the Nandom and Tatale Sanguli districts were ranked as the best performing assemblies while Agona East and Techiman Municipality are the poor performing districts.
The three best-performing regions are the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern Region.
Surprisingly all other regions had less than 5% of communities noted as open defecation free.
For the Ashanti and Northern Regions, the open defecation free initiative is yet to be rolled out.
On the national average, Greater Accra was ranked the best performing region with the Northern and Eastern regions ranked the lowest.
The report further highlighted that, majority of the districts performed poorly in more than one indicator a situation which has resulted in the researchers questioning the basis of resource allocation in Ghana.
