Ghana - Promoting Partnerships with Traditional Authorities Project

Report No. PID11165 Project Name Ghana-Promoting Partnerships with (@) Traditional Authorities Region Africa Regional Office Sector Non-Sector Specific Project ID GHPE71399 Borrower(s) GOVERNMENT OF GHANA Implementing Agency Address REGIONAL COORDINATING COUNCIL/ASHANTI COUNCIL Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council/Asanteman Council Address: Regional Administration, P.O. Box 38, KUMASI, GHANA Contact Person: Nana Boakye-Ansah Debrah/Mr. Y. Kwarteng Tel: 233-20 5115116, 233-51 22503 Fax: 233-51 22503 Email: cpptap@ghana.com Environment Category C Date PID Prepared April 24, 2002 Auth Appr/Negs Date May 7, 2002 Bank Approval Date May 21, 2002 1. Country and Sector Background The overriding goal of the government of Ghana's development strategy for poverty reduction is to eliminate hard core poverty and thus bring about a general improvement in the welfare of Ghanaians. The Government's strategy emphasizes among other things, improved access by the rural and urban poor to basic public services such as education, health care, water and sanitation and family planning services. While the Government of Ghana, has over the years spent considerable resources aimed at improving the welfare of Ghanaians through economic and social policies targeting the poor, recent poverty analysis indicate the impact on deprived and rural sections of Ghana has been relatively minimal and is still a major concern.In education for example, there is a significant gap in primary school enrollment between urban and rural areas. It is also believed that at the primary level, 24t of the eligible school going population are not receiving formal education. On health, health indicators remain far below the expected international standards. The underlying causes include high illiteracy rate and prevalence of poverty. About 60-70w of the country's health problems relate communicable and preventable diseases, and HIV/AIDS is also beginning to pose a major threat to the country's labor base. In effect, while the Government's spending on the social sectors has been high (about 1/3 of total allocation), most of this has been for wages and salaries (+/-90%) and relatively little for capital spending.Therefore, to implement its strategy for poverty reduction more effectively on the ground, the government realizes that it must enhance its relationship with  non-governmental organizations, and other entities which similar goals to the government'sOne such entity is the Traditional Authorities. Every hamlet, village, town, suburb or city in Ghana has or is supposed to have a chief, queen mother or traditional head person. These Traditional Authorities are, among other things, custodians of community land and hence the key stakeholders in the orderly and sustainable development of their communities. The notable involvement of the Traditional Authorities in socio-economic development activities is believed to date back to the 18th Century. The periodic cultural festivals, traditional court systems and voluntary community labour, all led by the Traditional Authorities, serve as information dissemination, ages-old governance systems which are aimed at improving the social development of the community with or without support from the Government. 2. Objectives The main purpose of the LIL is to test in a limited number of areas approaches to: (i) substantively integrate and improve deprived remote and rural communities' (led by the traditional authority) involvement, and (ii) help focus the contributions/influence of traditional authorities in socio-economic development. The proposed LIL will test what enhanced roles, chiefs, queenmothers and other community opinion leaders should play in, (i) the decentralization efforts of central government, (ii) the control and spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, (iii) closing the gap in the provision of, among other things, improved health, equitable and quality basic education in deprived rural and remote areas, and (iv) determining the role of cultural heritage preservation in the socio-economic development of a community. 3. Rationale for Bank's Involvement The proposed LiL is consistent with the Bank's Country Assistance Strategy of March 2000 and the goal of assisting the Government of Ghana implement its hardcore poverty reduction strategy more effectively. It is therefore necessary for the Bank to support opportunities to collaborate with development-oriented organizations such as the traditional authorities who are the forefront of non-government financing of development activities in deprived, rural communities that would contribute to general welfare of the community. Helping improve the welfare of the rural communities requires relatively large amounts of investments in education infrastructure, capacity building for the traditional authorities, etc which would require the Bank's support. 4. Description Activities to be financed include, capacity building, including design and implementation, for traditional authorities in the area of basic health issues particularly factors that cause ill health, increased awareness on HIV/AIDS and assistance to communities and households to ensure good health will be emphasized. There would be support to identify a more structured and sustainable method of partnership with government to help improve access to quality basic education in deprived rural areas, including support to set up Traditional Authority incentive schemes to retain teachers, scholarship schemes for pupils, and provision and rehabilitation of primary school infrastructure in deprived rural and remote areas. Support would also be provided to help communities better preserve their cultural heritage, development of educational activities in schools on cultural heritage and linkages to environmental degradation, a - 2 -  study on private sector-community business partnerships, and updated inventory of cultural heritage artificats/practises, and awareness creation on eco-tourism, for example. The proposed LiL will also be used to develop the financial and project management capacities of the Traditional authority's secretariats and to also facilitate the reform of the traditional courts (dispute resolution) system to enhance good governance. Advocacy modules to be used by traditional authorities on various issues; design and institution of a Community Health Register; training on developmental issues for traditional authorities; office equipment, vehicles; and a monitoring and evaluation plan would also be financed Total Financing Required 5. Financing Total ( US$m) BORROWER $0.50 IBRD IDA $5.00 Total Project Cost $5.50 6. Implementation 7. Sustainability 8. Lessons learned from past operations in the country/sector 9. Program of Targeted Intervention (PTI) N 10. Environment Aspects (including any public consultation) Issues : 1. Social & Environmental RisksThe will be no significant environmental and social risks emanating from implementation of actvities under this LIL. Since the proposed project will not finance any large scale infrastructural investments such as the rehabilitation or new construction of hospitals, roads, clinics, no significant environmental and social risks are expected. Within the pilot communities, the role proposed for the traditional authority under this LIL is not new or would not be perceived by the community as unbecoming and hence would not lead to the de-stoolment of the traditional authorities with its consequent social upheaval. Enstoolment and destoolment of traditional authorities in the pilot communities is also immune from political influences, and therefore social risks as a result of this project would be negligible. 11. Contact Point: Task Manager Kofi-Boateng Agyen The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington D.C. 20433 Telephone: 5337-3118/233-21 229681 Fax: 5337-3004/233-21 227887 -3-  12. For information on other project related documents contact: The InfoShop The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 458-5454 Fax: (202) 522-1500 Web: http:// www.worldbank.org/infoshop Note: This is information on an evolving project. Certain components may not be necessarily included in the final project. This PID was processed by the InfoShop during the week ending May 3, 2002. -4-