By
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Ghana’s
economic surge has come with it service delivery challenges. With
socio-economic inequality widening and much of the population rural bound, the
delivery of goods and services still remain a daunting task. Of recent times,
service delivery has become part of the economic growth mantra in Ghana.
At the centre of
the issue is efficiency, in-service training and the utilisation of modern
technology. This is against the backdrop of limited resources and inadequate
economic means. The idea is that services do not reach the appropriate target
because of either weak or non-existent information flow or infrastructure.
One of the shining
examples of improving service delivery in Ghana is the eGhana project, a World
Bank project that aims to support public-private partnerships to improve
efficiency and transparency through selected e-Government applications. While
laudable, these efforts are more of urban enterprises, with most rural areas
not enjoying these modern services because of poor infrastructure. Electricity
that is to run the eGovernment programmes is erratic. Traditional institutions
and values have not been integrated into the decentralization exercises that
are to wheel efficient service delivery.
Broadly, the
solution lies in better human contacts (especially working with local
communities), infrastructural development, better information flow and the
appropriation of information and communications technology. This isn’t only
public sector issues but also the private sectors, too. In all measure, the
sense, whether in water and sanitation, health, banking, registering
businesses, local government, healthcare or food production, is improving
service delivery to help reduce poverty and spur economic growth in Ghana.
Since much of the Ghanaian population lives in the rural areas, the key
challenge is balancing the urban and the rural areas in the attempts to improve
service delivery.
Whether in water
and sanitation, electricity, banking, agriculture production, and other
socio-economic products, interventions that will help address the challenges of
service delivery is seen more or less in the suggestions offered by Irene
Agyepong, of the Ministry of Health’s Dangme West District in Greater Accra
Region. Agyepong proposes that the interventions in reforming the health
service delivery in the district level should include public awareness of the
availability of resources. But the success of this depends on improvements in
coverage, utilization and quality.
This will be
enhanced by how flexible the central government allocate and use resources.
This calls for more integration of service delivery at district level with the
on-going decentralization programmes. This will make service delivery better
for more Ghanaians, especially for rural needs. In this context, there have to
be changes in basic and in-service training strategies and effective
partnerships between the private and public sectors within the available
limited resources.
The durability of
the integration process in service delivery will be more effective if
traditional institutions and values, as the key sources and structures in the
rural areas, are appropriated efficiently in the service delivery programmes.
The reality is, the bulk of Ghanaians operate within the informal, traditional
sectors, and most are in the rural areas. We can get a better sense from a
study undertaken by the Trend Group, a Kumasi-based NGO for WELL Resource
Centre Network for Water, Sanitation and Environmental Health, in the provision
of water, sanitation, health and educational services.
The service
delivery perspective led to sector practitioners doing away with earlier emphasis
on the central government being heavily involved in the delivery of water and
sanitation and the approach towards the building of more efficient service
delivery systems that provide uninterrupted, dependable and reasonable services.
The dawn of democracy is fast improving access to basic services. To this end,
the new strategy, driven by democratic tenets, has been towards a
decentralized, multi-sectoral, demand-driven and private-sector oriented
service delivery.
The appropriation
of information and communications technology, in-service training, greater
infrastructural development, greater decentralization that involves traditional
institutions and values, effective partnerships between the private and public
sectors are some interventions that might address the service delivery issues
in Ghana.
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