EU supports RCC with 2.25m euros

The European Union (EU) is supporting the 10 regional coordinating councils (RCC) in the country with 2.25 million euros to strengthen their institutional capacities and internal structures for effective monitoring of the activities of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs).

The money, which would be disbursed in the course of this year, is to help strengthen Ghana’s decentralisation process, where the MMDAs play a key role.

The launch of the grant was witnessed by all 10 regional ministers at a brief ceremony in Accra last Wednesday.

The Head of the EU delegation, Mr Claude Maerten, said the contribution was the EU’s way of reaffirming its support for the country’s decentralisation.

“Decentralisation processes and effective local governance contribute significantly to deepening democracy and citizen’s empowerment,” he stated.

According to him, the EU had a long standing relationship with Ghana and had also been helping the country improve service delivery to ensure that local governments became the engine of governance and local development.

Support to RCC strategic

Mr Maerten described the EU’s support for the RCCs as strategic, stressing that “subnational authorities and central governments ought to be considered as mutually dependent. It is within this context that support for the RCC was deemed paramount in fostering the decentralisation process in Ghana.” 

The EU has since 2012 been providing Ghana with institutional capacity support through a four-year programme. The EU, he said, had also introduced 45 million euros through a budget support programme to ensure the sustainability and full alignment with national decentralisation policy framework.

The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Akwesi Opong-Fosu, said the government recognised the crucial role played by the RCCs in shaping the development agenda of the MMDAs, hence his ministry’s support for them through a number of initiatives.

Mr Opong-Fosu who expressed the government’s appreciation for the support noted that “the grant would enhance the harmonisation and monitoring of public policies at the local level and increase the availability, access and quality of public services to the citizenry, which would result in improved living conditions of Ghanaians at the local level.”