CONSOLIDATING REPRESENTATION
AND PARTICIPATION IN GHANA /
UNDP Strategic Plan Outcome 2:Citizens expectations for voice, development, the rule for law and accountability are met by strong systems of democratic governance
UNDP Strategic Plan Output 2.1:Parliaments, constitution making bodies and electoral institutions enabled to perform core functions for improved accountability, participation and representation, including for peaceful transitions
UNDAF Outcome 10:Key national institutions of democracy are effective, accountable, gender responsive and promote peace, inclusive governance, human security with focus on vulnerable groups, by 2016
UNDAF Output(s) 10.1/10.2:Governance institutions operate within a decentralized enabling environment and promote inclusive, accountable and transparent governance; mechanisms in place for participation of women and vulnerable groups in decision making processes
Implementing Partner:Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee on Decentralisation (IMCC)
NarrativeThe 2015-2016 Representation and Participation WP is in full alignment with the 2012-2016 UNDAF and reflects the priorities of the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA). The WP builds on previous UNDP initiatives to enhance accountability, transparency and oversight capacities of duty-bearers at the local government level, to promote increased public confidence and participation in the 2016 elections, and to promote the increased participation of women and youth in decision making processes. During the two year period, efforts will be made to support the social accountability process in local governance, targeted electoral reform efforts, administration of governance assessments to improve data quality and availability, and the enactment of constitutional reforms. In addition, HIV and health challenges of marginalised persons including Persons living with HIV will be addressed. Finally, this WP seeks to build on earlier investments to promote the increased participation of women and youth in decision making processes and to enable marginalised persons and groups to engage with and demand accountability from the duty bearers. Conscious that Ghana lags behind the sub-region in the percentage of elected women representatives, this WP will seek to address some of the critical bottlenecks in partnership with key stakeholders.
Responsible Parties:UNDP, Local Government Network (LOGNET),Constitutional Review Implementation Committee(CRIC), Ghana Aids Commission (GAC), Electoral Commission (EC), Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF), Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), Africa Peer Review Mechanism – Ghana (APRM Ghana), Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), Department of Gender (DoG) of MoGCSP, CSOs
I: SITUATION ANALYSIS
Over the last two decades, Ghana has enjoyed relatively stable and deepening democratic governance. Six successful elections in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 have strengthened the effectiveness of key national institutions such as the Electoral Commission, the National Peace Council, the National Media Commission and the National Commission for Civic Education. The successful transfer of power from one opposing political party to the other in 2001 and in 2009 without any major incidents being recorded are testaments to the growing democratic credential of the country. The smooth transfer of power within the incumbent government after the death of the sitting president in July 2012 crowned Ghana's commitment to thrive as a democratic state.
In spite of these accolades, there exists significant polarization of political power which translates into the ‘winner-takes-all’ syndrome being practised in the country. This problem has affected economic governance and the deployment of qualified personnel to manage key positions in state institutions. Additionally, there still remain a number of critical challenges that require urgent resolution to deepen and sustain the progress made. These include: power imbalance among the arms of government, inadequate responsiveness to civil society and private sector initiatives in the governance process, insufficient public ownership of, and participation in governance process, limited awareness, advocacy and enforcement of rights and responsibilities, perception of corruption in the public sector, and insufficient engagement of arms of government and other governance institutions with the general public[1]. Other factors include resource disparity undermining the role of different arms of government; and low representation of women, youth and other marginalised groups in decision making processes.[2]
Enhancing Representation and public participation
Ghana has a distinctive tradition of ideology-based political parties not evident in many other African countries. This tradition has been reflected in all democratic governments since independence, and has persisted through military dictatorships in an informal way[3]
Relative to other African countries, Ghana has experienced several general elections (1951, 1954 and 1956, 1960, 1969 and 1979) and three referenda (1964, 1978 and 1992). The referendum of 1992 adopted the constitution that founded the Fourth Republic of Ghana, a country now characterized by growing stability and relative political maturity. The 2000 elections reflected an emerging alternative trend in African politics, with opposition parties winning the election and the ruling party accepting the verdict[4]. The Fourth Republic can boast a stable two-party system, with three to four minor parties struggling for representation with limited success.[5]
There have been no serious violations of the principles of free and fair elections during the last five elections from 1996 to 2012. Ghana has shown encouraging progress regarding the entrenchment of multiparty democracy and electoral efficiency and in 2008; irregularities were limited to a few incidents of electoral violence and intimidation. As a testament to this, during the 2008 elections, while the presidential election result was initially challenged by the NPP and its presidential candidate, they eventually ceded to the long-serving and steadfast Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) and an unequivocal statement from international observers, and power was handed over to the NDC[6].
The Presidential Election Petition case in the Supreme Court in 2013 was therefore a test case for this fledgling democracy as the first-time results of presidential elections were challenged in the courts of law, by the main opposition party. The eight month protracted legal tussle upheld the validity of incumbent party as the winner of the 2012 presidential elections.
The verdict of the Supreme Court on the 2012 elections unearthed significant administrative and legislative infractions in Ghana’s electoral system that need to be addressed, despite the fact that the processleading to the verdict and the aftermath reactions did not record any significant conflict and political violence. Subsequent to these reform propositions from the judiciary, the Electoral Commission of Ghana invited political parties and civil society groups to submit additional proposals for consideration to which the stakeholder speedily obliged. However the steps to initiate these reforms are yet to be communicated publicly. Interestingly, the Governance and Peace Polls (GaP Polls) conducted at the end of 2014 revealed that slim majority (54%) of citizens trust the EC to deliver on its mandate. This coupled with the slightly ruffled image of the EC as a result of the 2013 Presidential Election Petition sets the stage for imminent reforms to increase the confidence of the electorate in the election management body of the country.
In 2010, Ghana initiated the constitution review process which seeks to address some of the inadequacies with the balance of institutional power. After the nationwide consultation to receive recommendations from citizens, a comprehensive report was submitted to the Presidency that resulted in the issuance of a Government White paper on the proposals. A Constitution Review Implementation Committee (CRIC) was set up by the Presidency in 2013 to coordinate the implementation of the reform proposals. After over one year of drafting the legislative provisions for review, CRIC’s activities were halted in July 2014 as a result of a legal suit in the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the process implemented till date. The implementation process till date has been supported by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), European Union (EU) and UNDP.
Strengthening the Social Accountability in Local Governance
As active members of the democratization process, Ghanaians have the responsibility of holding their leaders to account as well as helping to improve the mechanisms by which citizens hold their leaders accountable. Recent studies reveal that citizens are willing to pay more taxes for more and better government services[7]. Sadly, citizens responded that basic information on tax collection and what the government does with tax revenues are difficult to access. Thus, there exist the opportunity to harness citizens’ willingness to pay to generate more revenue from taxation by undertaking tax sector reforms coupled with the delivery of efficient and quality public service. In capitalizing on the willingness to pay taxes, government must remember that it will be called upon by citizens to give an account of its stewardship as suggested by the regression results where demand for accountability from public office holders is significantly influenced by whether one pays income and self-employed taxes or not. Increased transparency in the use of public resources and other government initiatives involves ensuring that citizens have easy access to information, which also showed a positive impact on the demand for accountability (though not statistically significant).
Other results of recent studies[8]also reveal that as national literacy rate improves, citizens become more aware of their rights and are able to ask public officials to account for their stewardship. Thus, aside from encouraging and improving education policies, facilities and the content of our formal education system, there is also the need for comprehensive civic education at all levels to encourage effective citizens’ participation in the democratic process, with particular focus on females, to bridge the gap between males and females demand for accountability. Also, the civic responsibility of demanding accountability from leaders should be inculcated into citizens at a young age as the regression results of the survey showed that older people tend to demand accountability much more than young folks. Indeed, citizens express the willingness to participate in meetings at the community level, but there appears to be limited spaces for such engagement although the Local Government Act (Act 462) supports the organization of community-based forums.
Current affairs in Ghana in the recent past has centered on issues revolving around the political economy of the country. Key amongst these issues however is the subject matter of corruption, particularly by government actors at both the central and local levels. Corruption and limited administrative capacity continue to pose the biggest challenges, exemplified in unduly long legal procedures[9].The Afrobarometer Survey 2014 mirrors public opinion with regard to corruption with 75% of citizens saying that corruption has increased over the past year. The Public Procurement Act of 2003 is one of the instruments developed to promote transparency and accountability in Ghana. However, the transparency of the public procurement system is as questionable as the monitoring of codes of conduct and similar provisions. With the influx of oil revenue, the Public Procurement Act of 2003 has become more important, as it is still one of the most comprehensive legal regulations in Africa in regard to the administration of public tenders, although it is not always implemented to the letter resulting in consequences such as payments of numerous judgement debts which are draining the public purse[10].
These are evidence of a general lack of accountability, abuse of office and financial malfeasance by the duty bearers. The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has over the years, consistently unraveled gross misappropriation and pilfering of public funds by public officials. These issues are of great concern to citizens resulting in the low levels of trust in some public officials to effectively carry out their mandate without financial influence.
Supporting Governance Assessments to improve data availability
As the primary UN Agency charged with the mandate of leading the global development agenda, UNDP is expected to help countries grow sustainably and democratically out of poverty. The capacity to measure the changes being realized within countries is therefore vital to this process. Although significant progress has been made within the current UN programming cycle[11] towards the development of SMART indicators in the area of peace and governance, there still remain real gaps in data for effective governance decision making. Flowing from the famous quote that “you cannot change what you cannot measure”, UNDP in recent years hassupported national entities to periodically assess various governance and peace indicators. The principal objective of this initiative was to produce new data as well as tracking data on existing indicators. Thus surveys such as the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)’s national peer review governance assessment and the Governance and Peace Polls (GaP Poll) run by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) have been supported by UNDP in response to production of accurate and reliable data for effective planning and implementation of governance developmental projects.
Improving Gender Equality
Women constitute more than half of Ghana’s population; 51.2%[12], this means that, without their participation in the public discourse or decision making process, it would be difficult for Ghana to achieve sustainable development. Women in Ghana have played significant roles (though with low numbers) in the governance process of Ghana right from Independence till date; these stem from low recognition of gender equity in public sector, lack of gender responsive budgeting, inadequate representation and participation of women in public life and governance, and insufficient candidature of females in elections among others[13].
The Ghanaian constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender and gives equal standing to both males and females. Moreover, Ghana has ratified international and regional declarations, conventions, protocols and initiatives such as the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Protocol on the rights of African women and the African Women’s Decade among others aimed at promoting the rights and empowerment of women.
Despite efforts by stakeholders, women’s representation and participation at all levels of decision making in Ghana continues to be low. For example there are only 29 women in the 275 legislature of Ghana, constituting 10.5% a slight improvement compared to the previous parliament which had only 8.3% of women out of the 230 members,but woefully behind the MDG indicator of minimum 30% representation of women in National Parliament. In 2012, women parliamentary candidates constituted only 10.1%, a reduction compared to the 2008 elections when they were 10.7%. The story is not different at the local Assembly level, when only 7% of women got elected into the local Assemblies during the 2010 elections, a reduction from 10.10% in 2006.[14]
The Constitution of Ghana guarantees all persons the opportunity to participate in decision-making at every level. In District Assemblies, 70 percent of the members are elected and 30 percent are appointed. In local level governance the Government of Ghana issued a directive in 1998 according to which reserved 30% of the appointed seats of assemblies for women. This directive has however not been effectively implemented, although relatively insignificant progress has been recorded. In 2002 for example, women constituted only 5% of elected assembly members. In addition, only 6 out of 18 cabinet Ministers currently are women and only 18 out of 216 district Assembly Chief Executives are women.
Politics is considered to be men’s realm.For example, a study done in 2012by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD Ghana) reported that 34% of men and 21% of women sampled agree that men make better political leaders than women, and should be elected rather than women.[15] The strong socialization of men and women to see men as natural leaders and women as followers, can be attributed to patriarchy or male dominance which is a key aspect of the Ghanaian social system and the woman’s role and status are recognizably inferior to those of the man in almost all aspects of social, political and economic life. Custom, law and even religion have been used to rationalize and perpetuate these differential roles to the extent that women themselves seem to have accepted and internalized them. It is worth noting that the legal frameworks of the country gives equal opportunities for both men and women to register to vote, to exercise their franchise, and to stand to be elected for either as presidential candidates, members of Parliament or Assembly representatives in both local and national government structures.
Though women are engaged to play important roles in the campaign and mobilization of support for political parties, they rarely occupy high level decision making positions in these organizations. Women’s decision making is largely restricted to social aspects of the family while men serve as the gatekeepers of power. It is common for political parties to consider ethnic, regional and religious background in the selection of nominees, gender rarely serves as a basis in the selection.
These inequalities that result in the low participation of women can be attributed to traditional prejudices, beliefs and perceptions, gender discrimination, monetary requirements for running for political office and low levels of literacy. However, examples from other countries have shown that with the needed support and platforms, women are capable of making valuable contributions to development, poverty reduction, and to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
HIV Health and Development
UNDP examines health not from a biomedical point of view but rather through the social, cultural and economic determinants of health. Thus, UNDP concentrates its efforts on helping countries tackle the underlying issues related to health and development by strengthening governance institutions and playing a convening role for partners and resources.[16]