UPPER WEST REGION BENEFITS FROM PREVAILING PEACE (PAGE 22, DEC 31)

The relative peace being enjoyed in the Upper West Region is gradually yielding results as a number of international non-governmental organisations are gradually setting up offices in Wa, the regional capital.
Apart from Plan Ghana and ActionAid, the latest to do so is the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV).
SNV is an international development organisation with its headquarters based in The Hague, Netherlands and operating in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Out of this number, 17 are in Africa.
In Ghana, the SNV operates in Ho, Accra , Takoradi, Tamale and Wa and has as its mission, being dedicated to a society where all people enjoy the freedom to pursue their own sustainable development.
Apart from increasing its presence in Northern Ghana, SNV’s opening of the Upper West regional office is also to increase its relevance to the national poverty reduction effort and improve cost-effectiveness in service delivery. This decision was based on an assessment of the existing and potential demand for capacity development advisory services.
As a result of this a conclusion was reached based on the high success level and growth potential of SNV’s limited initiatives in the region, fusing SNV’s and Ghana’s strategic and thematic focus on the development needs of the Upper West Region and the receptiveness of political and administrative structures in the region.
The regional office has the mandate to deliver support to organisations in all the nine regions and nearby districts of Sawla-Tuna-Kalba and Bole districts in the Northern Region on a number of thematic areas.
These include primary education, primary healthcare, production, income generation and employment.
In the area of primary education SNV seeks to improve quality and access to education by improving planning and management, deployment of teachers at the district level by supporting and facilitating result-oriented educational planning and coordinating multiple stakeholders action for plan implementation.
It also seeks to link the School Feeding Programme to agricultural production at the community level, improve communication between key stakeholders in education at the regional and district level and explore direct links to district educational establishments to improve access to primary education.
Under healthcare, the organisation aims at promoting access to quality healthcare by supporting the National Health Insurance Scheme and service providers and improving good governance of the scheme with the view to increasing efficiency and effectiveness, participation, accountability and equity.
The SNV also explores opportunities in the area of maternal and child health care through strengthening structures under the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHIPS) strategy.
Furthermore, the SNV is working to improve production incomes and employment for the rural poor with emphasis on the integration of access to finance and entrepreneurship in its value chains, market linkages, facilitating multi-stakeholder processes to influencing the development of a national policy and strategy for sheanuts production.
In short, the SNV Ghana sees inter-linkages in its positioning choices, that is, health and education at the heart of socio-economic development.
According to the Wa office manager, Mr Chris Bakawere, for over 35 years the SNV has pursued its mission through direct project implementation by providing funds, technical services, logistics and infrastructure for organisations, whether governmental or not, all aimed at supporting national development.
He said since 2000, the SNV had changed its mode of operation and no longer engaged in direct project implementation.
“Experiences in 35 years of delivering technical assistance has taught the SNV that in its classical form, technical assistance has real and potential limitation and side effects. It may erode indigenous knowledge, spirit of self – organisations, sense of ownership, commitment and independent action of local actors,” he added.
Mr Bakawere explained that technical assistance undermined the independence of the very actors it sought to assist and had the tendency to sustain dependency and inequalities.
“We have realised that our good intentions to reduce poverty have not touched the underlying failing systems and power imbalances that fuel and perpetuate poverty hence these learning experiences have led to the changing visions in our work and role, ” he told the Daily Graphic.
With this, the SNV currently approaches poverty reduction through delivering capacity development advisory services since there are a lot of local development agencies working at the community level with high potential but with limited ability to deliver on their mandates. This is not only because of funding and logistical challenges but also due to issues related to governance, organisational development, formation and networking, mentoring, guidance, knowledge and skills.
Mr Bakawere summed the vision of his organisation as “the development goal and objective of SNV Ghana, since 1992 when we came into the country has been to contribute to good governance and poverty reduction as articulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the key national policy documents that define our national development priorities such as the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II (GPRS).”