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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Decentralization and Effective Government: The Case of Ghana's District Assemblies |
Author: | Ayee, Joseph R.A. |
Year: | 1992 |
Periodical: | Africa Insight |
Volume: | 22 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 49-56 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | decentralization regional government Politics and Government |
Abstract: | This article examines the validity of the claim that decentralization promotes effective government by using Ghana's District Assemblies (DAs) as a case study. The article assesses not only the success or failure of the DAs in the Ghanaian context, but also attempts to identify the constraints and facilitating factors which affect the operations of the DAs. The DAs in Ghana were created as a result of the Provisional National Defence Council's (PNDC) decentralization programme which started in 1987. To promote and enhance the policy objectives of its decentralization programme, the PNDC took some measures to strengthen the DAs. Despite the commitment of the PNDC to promote decentralization, it is an open question whether the DAs have achieved the objectives for which they were established. In this connection three questions are examined: To what extent have the DAs been able to improve the planning and implementation of local government programmes? Did the DAs improve the quality of the country's administration? How did the DAs speed up the process of decisionmaking and overcome the concentration of power in the nation's capital, Accra? Notes, ref. |