Ghana - Promoting Partnerships with Traditional Authorities Project

Updated Project Information Document (PID) Report No: AB151 Project Name GHANA-Promoting Partnerships with Traditional Authorities Project Region Africa Regional Office Sector Other social services (50%); General industry and trade sector (25%); Health (25%) Theme Other human development (P); Other financial and private sector development (S) Project P07 1399 Borrower(s) GOVERNMENT OF GHANA Implementing Agency(ies) ASANTEMAN COUNCIL SECRETARIAT ASANTEMAN COUNCIL Address: MANHYIA DEVELOPMENT UNIT, MANHYIA PALACE, P.O. BOX 285, KUMASI, GHANA Contact Person: MR. K.K. MENSAH Tel: 233-20 8111791, 233-51 37462, 38774 Fax: 233-51 38774 Email: cpptap@africaonline.com.gh AKYEM ABUAKWA TRADITIONAL COUNCIL, KYEBI AHEN FIE SECRETARIAT, KIBI-E/R, GHANA Address: PMB 109, CANTONMENTS, ACCRA, GHANA Contact Person: Nana Oforiwaa Koranteng Tel: 233-21 784963 Fax: 233-21 784964 Email: nkoranteng@ghana.com Environment Category C (Not Required) Date PID Prepared July 1, 2003 Auth Appr/Negs Date July 25, 2002 Bank Approval Date March 10, 2003 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 Govermment'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, 24 percent of the eligible school going population are not receiving fonnal education. On health, health indicators remain far below the expected international standards. The underlying causes include high illiteracy rate and prevalence of poverty. About 60-70 percent of the country's health problems relate to 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  2 PID 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 percent) 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-govemmental organizations, and other entities with similar goals to the government's. One such entity is the Traditional Authorities. Every hamlet, village, town, suburb or city in Ghana has or is supposed to have a chief, queenmother 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 labor, all led by the Traditional Authorities, serve as information dissemination, ages-old governance systems which are aimed at improving the social development of the coimiunity with or without support from the Government. 2. Objectives Test approaches to substantively integrate and improve traditional authorities involvement and help focus their contributions in socio-economic development in their communities. 3. Rationale for Bank's Involvement 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. Traditional authorities refer to the chiefs, and queenmothers of towns and villages in Ghana. Groupings of traditional authorities for a particular area, region, or kingdom constitute the traditional councils. 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 (including the rehabilitation of existing classrooms) in deprived rural and remote areas, and (iv) determining the role of cultural heritage preservation in the socio-economic development of a coimnunity. Given that the proposed LIL seeks to promote a changing role in development issues for traditional authorities, piloting will best help identify the right approaches within the target groups. 4. Description Traditional authorities and communities represented by the Asanteman Council, and those represented by the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Council will serve as the pilots under this LIL. The sectors for which IDA support was requested by the traditional authorities through the Government of Ghana and the specific areas for the support are summarized below: Health: Focusing on the Traditional Authorities, this component would strengthen their participation in activities to improve the general health and fight HIV/AIDS in their communities. This would be done through regular workshops and seminars for the Traditional Authorities, community volunteers and community members. The activities to be supported would focus on building the capacities of Traditional Authorities in the area of basic health, particularly factors that cause ill health as well as on HIV/AIDS. Capacities of Traditional Authorities would also be built to enable them provide assistance to communities and households to ensure improved health through prevention and care.  3 PID Education: This component would focus mainly on the rehabilitation of basic primary education facilities and supplies in the target pilot rural and deprived areas of the Ashanti region. Support would also be provided to identify a more structured and sustainable method of partnership with govemment to help improve access to quality basic education, including support to set up Traditional Authority-funded incentive schemes with the objective of retaining teachers in these remote areas, scholarship schemes for pupils, and improved enrollment. Capacity Building: This component would improve the financial management and administrative capacities of the traditional authorities' secretariats and also improve traditional authorities' capacity on decentralization and other developmental issues. A monitoring and evaluation system would be established in order to make sure feedback on project implementation, monitorable indicators and other administrative issues is readily available. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques will be employed in tracking the project indicators (inputs, processes, outputs effects and impact) as indicated in the project logical framework. The management information system (MIS) to be established in the Secretariats would be utilized to facilitate the flow of information. This will enable the project team to efficiently apply "lessons learned" at the earliest possible opportunity, continually assess progress toward objectives and goal, and respond efficiently to information needs of stakeholders. Baseline data will be gathered where possible for key performance indicators. In this regard pre- and post tests will be conducted as one key activity of training programs to establish knowledge levels on project output indicators before and after training prograimnes. M&E consultants will be engaged to, among other things, ensure that valid reliable data is gathered from existing systems and otherwise. This will also ensure that M&E results are incorporated in all activities to maximise the achievement of project goals and objectives. Cultural Heritage: This component would improve the communities' ability to better preserve and initiate programs that would help them to benefit from their cultural heritage, through for example, the development of educational activities/curriculum in schools on cultural heritage; linkages to environmental degradation; private sector-community business partnerships to set up for example, eco-tourism projects. Support would also be provided for updating the inventory of cultural heritage artificats/practises. This component would also seek to assist the traditional authorities review the operations of the traditional law courts system with the view to reducing the incidence of chieftaincy disputes, land litigation, etc. 5. Financing Source (Total (US$m)) BORROWER/RECIPIENT ($0.50) IDA ($5.00) Total Project Cost: $5.50 6. Implementation The Govemment of Ghana (GoG), through the Ministry of Finance (MoF), would be responsible for ensuring that this LIL is undertaken as planned. In view of the partnership and decentralization goals of this pilot, the project will be implemented by the Asanteman Council and the Akyem abuakwa Traditional Council which are responsible for the implementation of the project components in their respective areas and have set up project implementation arrangements within their traditional structures. The Councils will report to the GoG and IDA on the progress of implementation of their components. (i) Asanteman Council component:The council has established a Project Implementation Unit (PIU), called the Manhyia Development Unit (MDU) - within its secretariat which is charged with the day to  4 PID day implementation of the project. This implementation unit is managed by a project manager who reports to the King of the communities in the region and consists of a project accountant and a procurement specialist. The staff are experienced and have already carried out work under other Bank-assisted projects and participated in the preparation of this LIL. Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Council component: The secretariat (office of administration) of the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Council, will have the responsibility for the day to day implementation of this component. This council has selected a firm with adequately qualified personnel in project management, financial management and procurement to be based in this secretariat and will serve as the implementation unit under this component. The project manager will report to the king, who is also head of this council. The unit will contract out all assignments and activities, and will monitor, follow-up and report regularly on progress to the Council, which will submit progress reports to the GoG and IDA. 7. Sustainability The project is expected to serve as the take-off for a lasting impact on partnerships between the Govermnnent and non-govermmental organizations such as traditional authorities through the reduction in the levels of dependence on government budget for all development activities. The traditional authority institution is being strengthened to be a more active stakeholder in sustainable development activities. The project will be sustainable if, the Government remains clearly committed to ensuring a role for the traditional authorities in the alleviation of poverty especially in the rural and deprived communities; the chieftaincy institution is free of political inteference and a well-meaning public-traditional authority dialogue leads to a healthy partnership. Additionally, measures identified during implementation as promoting partnerships between the government and traditional authorities will contribute to the sustainablility of this process. The results from this LIL will be used in a follow on operation. 8. Lessons learned from past operations in the country/sector Institution and capacity building operations continue to be widely used and remain relevant to the Bank's commitment to develop local capacities and to assist the Government implement its strategy of alleviating poverty more closely to the ground. While this would be the first time the Bank would be involved with entities such as the traditional authorities, measures have been taken to overcome the effectiveness, ownership and coimnitment problems which have historically contributed to implementation delays in Bank-assisted projects in Ghana. Project preparation took place with the collaboration of the Governinent and the traditional authorities. 9. Environment Aspects (including any public consultation) Issues : 1. Social & Environmental Risks There will be no significant enviromnental and social risks emanating from implementation of actvities under this LWL. Since the proposed project will not finance any large scale infrastructural investments such as the rehabilitation or new construction of hospitals, roads, and clinics, no significant environmental and social risks are expected. The project would provide resources for civil works only for the rehabilitation of existing primary school buildings on the original sites. No new school block constructions would be undertaken under this LWL. However, if the Borrower decides during project implementation to construct a new classroom block, project-specific environmental and social assessment acceptable to the Bank would have to be undertaken prior to any construction.  5 PID Within the pilot communities, the role proposed for the traditional authority under this LIL is neither new nor would it be perceived by the community as unbecoming and perhaps lead to the de-stoolment of the traditional authorities with the 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. Additionally, these communities have long-established and tested conflict resolution mechanisms that would be available to resolve any potential conflicts. 10. List of factual technical documents: 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 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.