Builsa South District Assembly
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BUILSA SOUTH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY DRAFT DISTRICT MEDIUM TERM DEVELOPMENT PLAN IN LINE WITH THE GHANA NATIONAL MEDIUM TERM DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK 2014-2017 JANUARY 2014 BSDA_DMTDP 2014 - 2017 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This section of the District Medium Term Development Plan 2014-2017 gives the general background which includes description of the process that we followed in preparing this plan. It also shows the participation of key stakeholders at public hearings and public engagement meetings. The section presents brief insights into the scope and direction of the development programmes and projects for 2014-207. It also shows a brief of indicative budget, financial plan and expected outcomes. The Builsa South District Assembly was created and formally inaugurated in July 2012. The district development program was then based on the 2010-2013 MDTP .The district as an autonomous institution had to tease out from the then Bulsa District Plan, a plan for itself for the rest of the planning period of 2010-2013.To conform with National Development Policy (GSGDA I) the district advanced its development in areas of modernized agricultural development, human settlement management, enhancing private sector competiveness, transparency and accountability among others. DISTRICT AS PLANNING AUTHORITY District Assemblies in Ghana are charged with the overall Development of their areas of jurisdiction. To do this effectively they have to Plan .The Authority to Plan has been conferred on Assemblies by certain Legislations. These include; 1. The 1992 constitution. 2. The Local Government Act. Act 462 of 1993. 3. The National Development Planning Systems Act, Act480 of 1994 and 4. The civil Service Law 1993, (PNDC LAW 327). These spell out the different activities that Assemblies have to do to undertake successful Planning and Plan implementation. This current DMTDP (2014-2017) has been prepared in line with the GSGDA II that seeks to ensure conformity with the broad national development goals, objectives and strategies as contained in the NDPC Guidelines (2014-2017). The plan further takes advantage of the current national development policy which ensures uniform development of the whole country. The plan strictly adheres to the thematic areas of GSGDA II which include: 1. Ensuring and sustaining microeconomic stability 2. Enhancing competitiveness in Ghana’s private sector. 3. Accelerated Agricultural modernization and sustainable natural resource management. 4. Oil and Gas development. 3 5 Infrastructure and Human Settlement. 6 Human Development, Productivity and Employment. 7. Transparent and Accountable Governance. The NMTDPF 2014-2017, has mainstreamed Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) recommendations, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), migration, gender, climate change and other cross-cutting issues, Using the MTDPF 2010-2013 as the main source of reference to prepare the DMTDPs, particular attention was paid to sections where the DAs have been mentioned as either lead or collaborating agencies for implementation. Each thematic area is structured around focus areas, issues, policy objectives, strategies, lead implementing and collaborating agencies as well as global and regional linkages. The Plan begins with an introduction, a foreword and the Methodology used in developing the Plan. The central message of all these is that the Plan was prepared using participatory approaches geared at ensuring ownership and sustainability. The peculiar situation of the District as a vibrant agricultural zone is highlighted in the introduction to solicit external assistance to improve the environmental conditions associated with large scale agriculture and to create awareness on Disaster preparedness in the District. The rest of the Plan is dealt with in chapters as follows: Chapter One describes the District Profile which shows the current state of Development of the District. It gives an overview of Development activities that took place in the District over the years particularly between 2012 and 2013 when the district was newly created. The major issues raised there are an increasing population which is highly dispersed in settlement making it extremely difficult to equitably distribute development projects evenly in the communities, inadequate socio-economic infrastructure and services. The chapter also describes the environment as a degraded one. This has come about as a result of human activities, unfavourable climatic change and other physical conditions. The outcome is limited economic opportunities for the people. The activities of the District Assembly and its Decentralized Departments and other Agencies including the Traditional Authorities in promoting Good Governance are also described in the chapter. The Profile ends with a summary of the Key Development problems, issues and gaps that need to be addressed if the District is to make any progress in poverty reduction and Economic growth. Chapter two outlines the priorities the District intends to concentrate in the Medium Term as a result of resource limitations. Chapter three (3) describes the District Development Goal, sector goals and objectives and strategies/activities the District intends to undertake to improve the livelihood of the people. A 4 statement of the POTENTIALS, OPPORTUNITIES, CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES on the different issues raised by the sectors is also contained in. Chapter four is focused on the Development Programmes for 2014-2017. The same chapter also contains the Financial Plan of the District. In principle the Plan is supposed to cost ………………………….. to be implemented over the 4 year Period. Some expenditure is already paid out of it by way of projects executed and paid in 2014. The projected revenue of the Assembly for the period is …………………………. This will result in a Financial gap of ………………………………………... The Assembly proposes to use certain strategies to raise revenue to bridge this gap. These include Public Participation in revenue collection drive, trading, fund raising, appeal to Donors and a more constructive engagement with Development Partners. Chapter five describes District Annual Action Plans and the modalities for implementing the Medium Term Development Plan. It is explicit in the fact that the Medium Term Development Plan shall be implemented on Annual Action Plan basis. Each year a Plan shall be extracted and activities prioritized for implementation. It describes the District Assembly and its Decentralized Departments and Development Partners as key in implementing the Plan both by way of physical execution of projects and the provision of funds. The role of Central Government institutions in the provision of funds and technical assistance are outlined in the chapter and some of the particular Ministries, Departments and Agencies mentioned are Regional Coordinating Council, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the Common Fund Secretariat, the National Development Planning Commission and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. The Lower structures of the Assembly and the community members themselves including civil society organizations are expected to play meaningful roles in the implementation of the Plan. Chapter 6 describes the Mechanism put in Place to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the Plan. It describes the Organizational structure for monitoring beginning with Sector Departments and ending with backstopping Technical visits from the National institutions concerned with the implementation of the Plan. Their roles range from day to day supervision to monitoring visits to ensure that Programmes and Projects are executed according to schedule and standards. The method of Evaluation proposed is the Post Ante Evaluation. It will be done sometime after the Plan is implemented to see the impact of the Plan on the lives of the People. Chapter 7 describes the communication strategies to be put in place to disseminate the District Medium Term Development Plan, and Annual Progress reports of implementation of the DMTDP creation of awareness on the expected role of the stakeholders in implementation of the 5 District programmes, projects and activities. Proposed strategies include: Promotion of dialogue and generation of feedback on the performance of the District; and Promotion of access and management of expectations of the public concerning the services of the District. 6 INTRODUCTION Ghana is in its 4th phase of Medium Term Development Plan Preparation and implementation. The Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy which is the 3rd ended in 2009. All previous Plans were geared towards making Ghana a middle income Country .The last medium Term Development Plan was remarkable in setting the necessary conditions for growth in the Economy and other sectors That is why this current Medium Plan is predicated on growth and as Ghana is set to make a mark in Good Governance particular emphasis is placed on the equitable distribution of the wealth that is to be generated. Our District Medium Term Development Plan is a translation of the National Goals, Policies and Targets to suit our District’s needs and aspirations. It is prepared according to the Guidelines issued by the National Development Planning Commission. Stakeholder participation was very much emphasized in the preparation of the plan. Indeed the preparation began with community action Plans (CAPs) developed in more than 50% of our communities. The essence is to ensure ownership and consequently sustainability of the projects to be undertaken. To enhance sustainability,