The Partnership for Municipal Innovation-Women in Local Leadership (PMI-WILL) project has trained members of its working group, together with other heads of department on effective community service analysis at a day’s workshop in Atebubu, in the Bono East region.
The 5 year project, which has the objective of enhancing the rights of women, girls and the disabled, also runs in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Benin and Zambia.
It is being implemented by the National Association of Local Government Authorities of Ghana (NALAG) in partnership with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, with funding from Global Affairs, Canada, and has the Kwahu West Municipal, Tema metropolitan, Saboba district and Nadom municipal also benefitting.
According to Mr. Emmanuel Abbey Musah, Programme Officer for PMI-WILL, the training programme is in line with a project objective of providing technical and financial support to beneficiary local governments to assist them plan and implement one inclusive and gender responsive service initiative that is of priority to a selected community.
He said the assembly will also benefit from training on proposal writing all in a bid to help prepare an appropriate representation to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for the legacy project.
Mrs. Rita Afriyie of Radix Consult who facilitated the workshop said effective community engagement ensures inclusivity which leads to better decision making, stronger relationships and fosters ownership.
She mentioned informative, consultative, involved, collaborative and empowered engagements as types that could be deployed depending on factors like planned objectives, resource availability and the potential impact of the type of engagement used on the affected community.
Mrs. Afriyie also spoke about some key considerations when choosing the right type of engagement for a community. She said it is important to understand the target audience and their preferences, while being guided by the goals and objectives of the engagement as well as resource availability adding that it is important to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of each type of engagement.
Participants undertook some group work to test their understanding and readiness to apply the new insights gained at the workshop.
