The 2023 District League Table (DLT), a tool for tracking the performance of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) on key development indicators, has revealed widespread disparities among the districts.
The DLT, an initiative by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) with support from UNICEF, raised issues regarding quality-of-service delivery and disparities in wellbeing among the 261 districts.
The 2023 Report covered indicators such as education, nutrition, health, water, sanitation, energy, governance, energy, and child protection.
In the area of sanitation, the Report showed that while the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality and Tema West Municipality both achieved scores of 100 per cent, the East Mamprusi Municipality scored 12.1 per cent.
In terms of water coverage, while seventeen MMDAs enjoyed 100 per cent access to potable water, Savelugu Municipal had only 10 per cent coverage.
In the area of health (which looked at the rate of exclusive breastfeeding among infants 0-3 months and Vitamin A coverage of children 6 to 959 months, among others), there was a stark disparity between Korle-Klottey Municipality which ranked first with a score of almost 100 per cent and the lowest ranked Assembly, Ablekuma North Municipality which scored only 28.8 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Sunyani Municipality ranked first overall, with a score of 94.2, followed by the Ayawaso West Municipality, and the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, with a score of 93.9 and 90.2 respectively.
The Central Gonja District in the Savannah Region placed last with a score of 31.2.
The DLT is developed as a tool for tracking national development and highlighting districts that are doing well and those challenged in terms of wellbeing of their populations.
The overarching objective is to generate accurate District-level data and provide findings and recommendations with key messages to foster policy dialogue and actions at both the national and sub-national levels.
Commenting on the report, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson, Chairman, NDPC, emphasised the need to put “human face” to the scores to enable the public to experience development beyond the rankings.
He said the NDPC would prioritise research to underpin its development plans and urged the country to pay attention to the challenges of the Assemblies to propel national development.
“Are things really improving? Are health services improving? Are schools improving? Enrolment may go up, but are people really learning?” Dr Thompson asked, adding: “These are the human elements that I would like this report to evolve to become.”
Dr Pauliina Sarvilahti, UNICEF Chief of Social Policy and Inclusion, said the widespread disparities among the districts should be a matter of concern.
“I wish to make a humble appeal to the National Development Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance to seriously consider including in the Budget Guidelines, reference to the District League Table as one of the tools which the MDAs could use to guide their allocation of financial and human resources to the district level, for the sake of the low-ranked Districts,” she said.
GNA
