Contents

<< Previous

Next >>

4. Key Stakeholders and Processes in Strategy Work

The discussion will center on the key actors and processes for formulating and implementing four key strategy programmes to exemplify the process of developing national strategies for sustainable development in Ghana. These are: (a) Ghana Vision 2020, (b) the CDF, (c) the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy, (d) the Renewable Natural Resource Strategy.

4.1 Formulating Vision 2020: methodology, process and participation

Table 1 shows the process followed to prepare the Medium-Term Development Plan (1996-2000). Steps 1-7 were concerned with the preparation of the National Development Policy Framework (NDPF). As already explained, the NDPF was designed to provide a long-term perspective to the preparation of the plan. Thus, although it was not the intention of the NDPC to prepare a vision document, the long-term orientation of the NDPF enabled the Government to refer to it as Vision 2020. Following this decision, the Government directed the NDPC to initiate the process of preparing the medium-term plan that would constitute the first step in the implementation of Vision 2020.

Table 1: Strategy Formulation Process – Vision 2020 & Medium-Term Development Plan (1996-2000)

  <#0>idth1idth3idth4788idth3idth4590idth1idth3idth4788idth3idth4590

Step	Stakeholders/Participants
1. Goal Setting 2. Stakeholder comments on goals 3. Synthesis of stakeholder responses 4. Hierarchy of goals and strategies 5. Draft NDPF 6. Review of Draft NDPF 7. Finalization of NDPF 8. Preparation of First Step (1996-2000) 9. Approval by Parliament 10. Preparation of First Medium-Term Plan 11. Preparation of Programme of Action	NDPC NDPC, MDAs, DAs, Etc. NDPC NDPC, MDAs, DAs, Etc. NDPC NDPC, MDAs, DAs, Etc. NDPC NDPC Parliament NDPC, MDAs, DAs, Etc. NDPC

The methodology for preparing Vision 2020 is similar to the approach used in preparing conventional medium term plans. The NDPC established cross-sectoral planning groups to identify development constraints, and to coordinate ideas and proposals from Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). These were then harmonized and published. The main participants in the preparation process were the NDPC and the MDAs.

Table 1 shows that the NDPC initiated the process of setting the development goals for the NDPF. The Commission proposed a set of goals and objectives and then sought the comments on the goals from MDAs and District Assemblies. This general pattern whereby the NDPC took the initiative to prepare a draft and then submitted it to comments by other stakeholders was a general feature of the participatory process that was adopted to formulate the NDPF. Under this approach, the formulation of the NDPF was mainly dominated by central government agencies, including the NDPC itself and MDAs.

The preparation of the First Medium-Term Development Plan involved wide participation by various stakeholders. After the Five-Year Policy Framework (The First Step) was approved by Parliament in 1995, the preparation of the Medium-Term Plan commenced with the NDPC distributing Guidelines for the preparation of sector and district medium-term plans. These guidelines were sent to all sector Ministries, Departments/Agencies and all District Assemblies and Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs).

The Perspective National Medium-Term Plan was completed at the beginning of 1997. This required the coordination and harmonization of three sets of plans:

• 5-Year district development plans by all 110 District/Municipal/Metropolitan Assemblies;
• Sector plans by all sector Ministries, Departments and agencies;
• 10 Regionally harmonized plans out of the district plans;

In addition to the planning agencies of the District Assemblies, RCCs, MDAs and NDPC, the synthesis of the plan involved academic and research institutions, TUC, workers and farmers associations, the business community and civil society organizations including NGOs and CBOs. Many of these institutions and stakeholders were grouped in six Cross Sectoral Planning Groups. The Plan also benefited from critical comments from distinguished Ghanaians and professionals working in Ghana and overseas, international donor community and from members of the Governing Body of NDPC.

4.2 The Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) process in Ghana

The original framework for coordinating development assistance by all development partners and for reviewing government’s development agenda was the Consultative Group (CG) meeting mechanism. This review, programming and monitoring activity grew from the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) and provided the stage for the government to present its programmes, report achievements and problems, and, seek development assistance from the multi-donor forum. The forum was held outside Ghana.

As part of the transition from the ERP era, the regular CG process was replaced by a biennial Country Programme Review meetings held in Ghana (at Akuse) that focused only on World Bank-supported programmes. Other donors who co-financed these Bank-supported projects were excluded from participating in these meetings.

To coordinate donor activities more effectively through frequent and more regular interaction between the government and all its development partners, to share information, and, resolve development policy and programme design and implementation issues in an integrated manner, the Akuse meetings were replaced during the first quarter of 1999 with the Mini-CG process. This quarterly meeting of government and all development partners broadened the scope of consultation and shortened the time interval for those meetings from two years to three months. The government chaired the Mini-CG.

The Mini-CG process laid the basis for the preparation of Ghana’s CDF through the setting up of a network of Sectoral Coordinating Groups (SCGs) to act as focal points for the development of the comprehensive framework. The SCGs comprised the sector MDA as the lead national agency and development partners as focal support. The concept of focal support replaced that of ‘lead donor’ under the previous donor coordination mechanism. The list of fourteen SCGs is presented in Annex C.

The SCGs prepared Issues Papers on their respective sectors covering: (a) situation analysis, problems and challenges, (b) development strategy and programmes being utilized to address issues by various stakeholders, (c) key indicators for monitoring progress. These papers formed the basis for the preparation of Ghana’s CDF by a joint government-donor team, albeit with major input from the World Bank.

The objectives of the CDF are :

• A more coherent set of inter-related sector polices
• A rapid move by donors away from the financing of individual projects towards the financial of programmes
• A reduction in the "bureaucracy of development", and the huge burden on Government of administering different donor systems.
• A much greater degree of ownership and management of the development programme by Ghana, and a genuine partnership with donors, civil society and the private sector.
• A pattern of financing that is more comprehensive, covers gaps that exist now and reduces competition between donors in other areas.

The CDF formed the basis for Ghana’s request for assistance and donors’ commitments at the 10^th multi-donor CG and the first to be held in Accra in December 1999. The CDF is considered to be a first draft that will continue to be refined and updated as ‘a living document’.

4.3 The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS)

A. Process

The government has been concerned about the poverty impacts of its economic programmes of the 1980s and made initial attempts to address these concerns through the mechanism of the Programme of Actions to Mitigate the Social Costs of Adjustment (PAMSCAD) initiated in the late 1980s. To provide an empirical base for assessing impacts on living standards, the Ghana Living standards Survey (GLSS) was initiated in 1987. By 1995, information from three rounds of the GLSS and from the Ghana Extended Poverty Study helped to more accurately measure the extent, depth and effects of poverty, and provide the impetus for heightened action to address poverty as a central issue of Ghana’s development agenda.

Consequently, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, with the support of the UNDP, produced a National Action Programme for Poverty Reduction in 1995. In response to the need for a national institutional mechanism to coordinate the development of initiatives to address poverty in an integrated manner, the government formed the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Poverty Reduction (IMCPR) in 1995. The IMCPR, chaired by the minister of finance, and comprising ministers in charge of health, education, environment, science and technology, employment and social welfare, food and agriculture, local government and rural development as well heads of the NDPC and the National Council on Women and Development, was the highest policy making organ on poverty–related issues in Ghana.

The IMCPR was backed by an inter-agency and multi-sectoral Technical Committee on Poverty (TCOP) that produced the Policy Focus for Poverty Reduction in 1996, with the assistance of a local private consultant. The consultant’s preliminary report was the basis for a government meeting with donors in December 1995 and a Workshop on Poverty in February 1996 that was attended by a wide range of stakeholders.

Under the ambit of the NDPC’s Poverty Reduction Unit (PRU), a Ghana PRS Task Force (now composed of the TCOP members) was coordinating the process of updating the GPRS through the use of Core Teams to prepare frameworks and programmes covering focus areas of the strategy. These focus areas were: macroeconomic framework, employment, human resource development, vulnerability, and, governance.

The activities of the IMCPR permeated all planning levels within the decentralized planning system. The District Planning Coordinating Units (DPCUs) at the district level and the Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Department (PPMED) heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) were to ensure that poverty concerns are integrated into their policy and planning processes and serve as contact points for the NDPC/PRU.

The role of the Core Teams was central to the process of preparing the updated GPRS. The concept was akin to that of the Cross Sectoral Planning Groups (CSPGs) utilized for the preparation of the Second Medium Term Plan under the Vision 2020. The GPRS Core Teams were formed with membership from relevant government agencies, the PRU, donor agencies and civil society groups. A consultant assisted the Teams.

The work of the Core Teams in preparing the GPRS was phased into three stages involving diagnosis, strategy formulation, and programming. Thus, the functions of Core Teams were to: (a) conduct situation analyses of poverty and its development implications and prepare strategic frameworks, (b) define strategic areas of action and develop policies and implementation strategies, and, (c) prepare poverty reduction programmes with accompanying resource, institutional and structural reform implications.

The planned steps in the preparation of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) included:

• Agreement by IMCR and TCOP on framework for preparing the GPRS
• Launching of GPRS process
• Formation of Core Teams
• Orientation for commencement of work by Core Teams
• Consultations with civil society representatives on situation analysis, strategy and programmes
• Technical Harmonization Forum
• Consensus building forum on First draft GPRS
• GOG/Donor Consultative workshop on Strategy and programmes for implementing GPRS
• Finalization of Ghana's Poverty Reduction Strategy
• Publication and Circulation of updated GPRS

In terms of the timeframe for the preparation, the update of the GPRS was launched in July 2000 and the Task Force established in August 2000. The revised strategy was scheduled to be completed by March 2001. However, the entire process has been superseded by a new process of preparing the GPRSP under the HIPC initiative by the new government. Currently, a draft GPRSP has been prepared awaiting finalization.

B. Participation

Stakeholder participation is an important part of the GPRS process aimed at assuring ownership through taking into consideration concerns of stakeholders, sharing information and providing feedback, and providing a platform for goal setting, prioritization and target determination. Emphasis is on avoiding the creation of a parallel consultation and participation process by using existing avenues and mechanisms. Consultations are to take place within government and between government and civil society groups, private sector, the vulnerable and poor and development partners.

The key stakeholder in the process include the IMPR, TCOP, NDPC/PRU, donors, Core Team members, consultant, district assemblies, civil society organizations, labour, employers, religious bodies, academic think tanks, and the media.

Participation mechanisms being utilized include:

• consensus building workshops and meetings
• public information campaigns
• information dissemination through various stakeholder groups
• field visits, interviews and focus-group discussions
• consultative group meeting on the draft final GPRS document

The GPRS process would ensure monitoring and accountability through emphasis on community participation in monitoring and evaluation using completed Participatory Poverty Assessments as the baseline.

It is expected that at the end of the exercise, the new GPRS would satisfy the six core principles espoused by the World Bank that underlie the preparation and implementation of poverty reduction strategies by being country-driven, results-oriented, comprehensive, prioritized, partnership-oriented and driven by a long-term perspective.

4.4 Formulating the Renewable Natural Resource Strategy: methodology, process and participation

A study of the process adopted to formulate the Renewable Natural Resource Strategy (1996-2000) is instructive in several respects. Unlike the Vision 2020 that did not specifically set out to design a strategy, the RNR Strategy process was organized to formulate a strategy for the sector. This means that it could shed more light on some of the strategy processes that were not evident from the Vision 2020 process. A second reason for interest in the RNR Strategy is that it covers sectors that are central to Agenda 21 and sustainable development. Finally, a detailed study has been carried out to assess the participatory approaches that were adopted in formulating the RNR Strategy. Such a study enables us to deepen our understanding of the participatory processes adopted in formulating development strategies in Ghana. Indeed the participatory approach followed in the RNR Strategy process is typical of the approaches adopted in the various sectors.

A. Background

The development and management of the Renewable Natural Resource sector cuts across several sectors of the economy, including agriculture, forestry, livestock, fisheries, water and the environment, together with the concomitant agriculture-related industries. The Vision 2020 document identifies objectives, targets and strategies for all these sectors, but not in an integrated manner. For example, agriculture, including fisheries, forestry and livestock appears under the Production chapter; Water sector falls under the Social Development chapter, while the Environment is addressed under a separate chapter.

The Government of Ghana has over the years initiated a number of programmes to manage the RNR sector. A lot of assistance has been received from a number of donor agencies, Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations in its attempt to develop and manage the sector. These efforts and assistance have, however, been project and sub-project based without due consideration to the sector-wide needs, and the requisite linkage and coordination arrangements to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. To address these issues the GoG, with assistance from the United Kingdom Overseas Development Administration (UKODA), initiated a process aimed at formulating the RNR Sector Strategy (1996-2000). The aim is to ensure a coordinated and strategic approach to RNR development and management in Ghana.

B. Methodology

The key methodology for formulating the RNR strategy was the Goal Oriented Project Planning (GOPP) approach. The application of GOPP ensures a consistent train of thought and procedure and a uniform understanding of terms used. As a tool originally designed for planning project preparation and implementation phases, it provides a framework for ensuring that project inputs, output, purpose, and development goals are linked logically.

C. Participatory Process

Table 2 explains the participatory process used to formulate the Renewable Natural Resources Strategy (1996–2000). The matrix shows that the formulation of the RNR Strategy involved six steps and took about a year to complete.

Each step in the process had defined objective(s) and outputs. For example, the initial workshop was aimed at getting participants to deliberate on issues which affect the development of the RNR sector, and to build consensus on these issues. This step involved mainly the participation of senior officials responsible for planning functions in the stakeholder ministries, department and agencies. On the other hand, the objectives of the Stakeholder Forum reflected the need to reach consensus on all the key issues regarding the strategy and to ensure that all stakeholders were part of this important step. A number of institutions and stakeholders participated in the Forum including Ministers of State, Heads of MDAs, representatives of Parliament, research institutes, Regional Coordinating Councils/District Assemblies, multilateral and bilateral agencies, NGOs, private sector and political parties.

A review of participants’ expectations of the Sogakope Workshop provides insights into the interests that were represented at the meeting. Ministries, Departments and Agencies were concerned to ensure that there was consensus on a workable, well-coordinated, sustainable and implementable plan for the RNR sector. The NDPC representatives were interested in ensuring an enhanced commitment to improved coordination and collaboration in the RNR sector. The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development’s interests concerned how the Ministry, the RCCs and District Assemblies could support the RNR Strategy implementation in the regions and districts. The NGOs wanted to identify and collaborate with other stakeholders in RNR areas of activity that were of interest to the NGOs. Finally, donor agencies were concerned to see a clearly defined policy framework within which they could provide assistance to the RNR sector. Clearly, these diverse but complementary interests go to support the need to ensure maximum stakeholder participation in strategy formulation exercises.

Table 2: Strategy Formulation Process: Renewable Natural Resources Strategy (1996 – 2000)

D. Analysis of Participation

The RNR Strategy formulation process has been the focus of an intensive study conducted by Botchie, et al (1998). This study sought, among other things, to analyze a historical overview of the RNR strategy formulation process, the level of participation and effectiveness of the participatory tools used. The primary data for the study was drawn from a sample frame of primary and secondary stakeholders who participated at each stage of the RNR strategy formulation process.

Table 3 shows a summary of conclusions of the study regarding assessment of stakeholder participation. Stakeholders were classified as having had no participation, low participation, or high participation on the basis of criteria explained in Table 3. The study revealed that the RNR Strategy was formulated through a participatory approach. The study, however, concluded that the participatory process advanced towards the finalization stage. The study did not quantify the extent of participation of the various institutions and stakeholders.

In Table 4 we have attempted to quantify the levels of participation of the stakeholders in the RNR Strategy process. Using Table 3 as a basis, we assigned numerical values of 0, 1, or 2 to “no participation”, “low participation”, and “high participation”, respectively. We then proceeded to compute the level of participation of a stakeholder group in the process by dividing its column score by the possible maximum score of 12 if it had high participation at all six stages of the process.

Table 4 shows that central government stakeholders (both primary and secondary) dominated the participatory process. It is also apparent that the level of participation of secondary stakeholders in central government was higher than that of primary stakeholders such as the Forestry Department, Lands Commission, Wildlife Department, and Timber Export Development Board. The participation of the private sector institutions, local authorities, and traditional authorities was low.

The results of the Botchie et al (1988) study overstate the level of participation in the RNR Strategy formulation process. This resulted from the fact that the study interviewed stakeholders who were invited to participate in the process. Thus if a more representative list of stakeholders, including those not invited, had been drawn up as a basis for assessing participation, the level of overall participation would have been lower than the 36 percent level recorded for all stakeholders in Table 4.

Table 3. Assessment of participation in the RNRS formulation process

Participatory Stage	Primary Stakeholders				Secondary Stakeholders
	CG	LG	TA	PS	CG	NG	EA	PS
1. Initiation	L	N	N	N	H	N	H	N
2. Consensus Building	L	N	N	N	H	N	L	N
3. Consultative Group	H	N	N	N	H	N	H	N
4. Planning Workshop	L	L	N	N	H	L	L	N
5. Strategy Formulation	N	N	N	N	L	L	L	N
6. Strategy Finalization	H	H	L	L	H	H	H	L

Source: George Botchie, George Ortsin, F. D. Tay, G. Laryea-Adjei (1998), Participatory Approaches Learning Study of the Process of Formulating Renewable Natural Resources Sector in Ghana. Prepared for International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC), Oxford and UK Department for International Department under the supervision of NDPC, Accra. March 20, 1998

Legend:

CG – Central government agencies; LG – Local Government; TA – Traditional Authorities; PS – Private Sector; NG – NGOs; EA – External Agencies

H – Low participation indicates a display of mutual understanding, open consultation, ownership and commitment by a group of stakeholders.

L– Low participation indicates little ownership and commitment to the process despite some representation at meetings.

N – No participation means that a particular stakeholder group did not participate at a specified stage in the process

Table 4. Analysis of Stakeholder Participation in RNR Formulation Process

Stakeholder Category Participation	(%)
All stakeholders	36.4
All primary stakeholders	20.8
All secondary stakeholders	52.1
Central government (primary)	58.3
Central Government (secondary)	91.7
All central government	75.0
Local authorities	25.0
Private sector	8.3
Traditional authorities	8.3
Source: Computed from Table 3