The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) in collaboration with the Millennium Excellence Foundation (MEF) will this year organise the country’s first awards scheme to celebrate and recognise the contributions of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to national development.
The National District Awards (NDA), which will be held in November this year, will reward “best-performing” MMDAs with respect to the effective delivery of their mandate.
The Scheme, which is based on the Districts League Table (a performance-ranking system of all the 260 MMDAs ), will also reward “most improved” MMDAs that are making maximum effort to achieve their set goals.
As part of the benefits of the award, the MEF will provide funding for specific priority projects to be rolled out by the best performing Assemblies.
Consequently, the NDPC and MEF on Thursday, June 9, 2022, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to formalise the partnership and demonstrate their commitment towards the Project.
Dr Kojo E. Mensah-Abrampa, Director-General, NDPC signed on behalf of the Commission, while Dr Grace Amey-Obeng, Chairperson of MEF’s Board of Governors, signed on behalf of the Foundation.
The MEF is a non-profit organisation established in 1998 to celebrate successful enterprises in Africa.
Dr Amey-Obeng said the maiden edition of the Awards would focus on sanitation management, and would be extended to other development areas aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
She expressed hope that the partnership with the NDPC would stimulate self-led development in the various assemblies and provide funding opportunities for the MMDAs.
“Today, we sow a seed of motivation for MMDAs to lead and drive their own development. A seed that helps Central Government allocate resources more fairly, and a seed that helps development partners to target their interventions.
“Hopefully, this seed will continue to yield the expected dividends for generations to come,” she said.
Dr Mensah-Abrampa said the Awards was in keeping with the NDPC’s mandate to develop strategies that would ensure structured development and balanced use of resources.
“The Award will bring visibility to the work and innovations of the Districts. It will also throw light on the Districts for us to know the great work that they are doing,” he said.
Dr Mensah-Abrampa said by appreciating the efforts of hard-working Assemblies, the less-performing ones would be challenged to scale-up their performance.
He also called for support for Assemblies that were under-resourced to empower them to effectively discharge their duties.
Mr Ashim Morton, the President of MEF, said the Award would be held annually, adding that it was the expectation of the Foundation that many MMDAs would excel through the initiative.
“Recognising people and institutions bring about competition, ideas, and sustains development,” he said.