The results from the 2017 District league table (DLT) is to be brought to the regional level in a series of launches in the month of March, 2018.
The regional dissemination would this year be modified to serve as a learning platform to enable struggling districts learn from the best performing ones.
Previously, this has been done in all ten regions with people invited from all the districts in the regions.
“The change in format is to focus resources on helping the low ranked Districts in each Region to learn from their higher-ranking peers what they are doing right to enhance service delivery”, says Charles Dziradosi, Social Policy Specialist at UNICEF.
Now in its fourth year, the District League Table is a tool that assesses the level of development across the entire country, ranking all Ghana’s 216 Districts by their level of wellbeing. It is Ghana’s only tool that allows stakeholders to track progress across the country and see which Districts are doing well in Ghana and can be learnt from, and which are struggling and need greater support. The Table aims to improve transparency and accountability in national development by making progress public.
The Tema Municipal Assembly was the best performing district for the second time in the 2017 report, scoring the highest marks in the areas of education, sanitation, water coverage, health provision, security and governance.
The municipality scored 80 per cent being the highest with the average national score this year being 64.7.
The District in 216th place is now Krachi East in the Volta Region with a score of just 50.6 taking over from the North Tongu district which was last in 2016.
Surprising findings this year include the fact that the Upper West region- Ghana’ poorest- had the highest average District score. This is due to comparatively higher indicators in the region across the DLT sectors, in particular the region has some of the highest rates of communities that have successfully ended open defecation, although its education indicators are still low.
Another key result is that being a District with a high level of poverty does not necessarily mean that it will score poorly in the DLT. This implies that other factors, such as infrastructure, isolation, leadership, or climate could also be important.
The findings show that funding allocations to the local level from the Government’s District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) are not allocated in favour of struggling Districts. The more deprived Districts at the bottom of the DLT were not receiving greater support to help them face their challenges.
Another key finding is how districts like the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis- with all of the oil and gas hype and investments is still one of the worst performing districts ranking in the bottom sixteen.
The DLT this year shows that overall Ghana is moving in the right direction although slowly, as the top and bottom scores have both increased.
This year’s average national score of 64.7 compares with an average of 58.9 last year. However, with an eventual target of a score of 100, it is clear that the majority of Districts are still far from this goal.
