The Tema Metropolis topped the 2021 District League Table (DLT), with an overall score of 81.78 per cent, making it the only metropolis to top the table twice.
According to the 2021 DLT report launched in Accra yesterday, the lowest ranked district of the table was Nanton in the Northern Region, with a score of 38.66 per cent.
In terms of the regional ranking, the Greater Accra Region had 72.37 to place first and the Savannah Region was sixteenth with 52.61 per cent.
The report was launched by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on the theme “Generating Evidence for Addressing Unequal Access to Services and Development Opportunities for Children.”
The Director-General, NDPC, Dr Kodjo Essiem Mensah-Abrampa, said the 2021 DLT Report which was the seventh edition was built on the progress of work accomplished over the six editions and provided an assessment of the levels of development across all the 261 Metropolises, Municipalities and the Districts (MMDs) in the country based on selected indicators from health, nutrition, education, water, sanitation, energy and governance.
He said that the obvious wide gap between Tema and Nanton should be a cause of concern for all development actors from the national to the sub-national level.
“It is obvious from the wide disparities in service delivery across the country that many populations, especially in the lower ranked MMDs are being left behind, simply because of where they live.
“Without a deliberate effort at reducing inequality, accomplished by equitable resource allocation, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDSs) are unlikely to be achieved by the 2030 target year,” he said.
Prof. George Gyan-Baffour, Chairman, NDPC, said the DLT since its inception in 2014 had served as one of the important tools for measuring the status of development at the subnational level.
He said the tool was in pursuance of the NDPC’s mandate of monitoring and evaluating development outcomes by highlighting inequalities and disparities in wellbeing across the country.
“It also provides a multi-sectoral, integrated assessment of how Ghana is developing across all its MMDs based on the selected sectors and indicators.
Prof.Gyan-Baffour said that the selected indicators incorporated both the SDGs and the African Union Agenda 2063 indicators to generate appropriate district level data and analysis for achieving these international commitments.
“NDPC in collaboration with UNICEF and other partners are committed to addressing disparities in development. Efforts are being made to integrate DLT into the allocation formula used for the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) to ensure resources are equitably distributed,” he added.
Mr Mrunal Shetye, Deputy Representative OIC, UNICEF Ghana, said that through the partnership between UNICEF and the NDPC established in 2021, the DLT index was now a government owned tool which provided greater opportunity for better planning and potentially more effective and well-targeted resource allocation.
He said that UNICEF sincerely appreciated the effort and support of the NDPC in strengthening the efficacy of the DLT and the going collaboration in respect of this tool.
Mr Shetye used the opportunity to invite fellow development partners and NGOs to use the DLT in their consideration of which districts and regions they want to support, to reduce these high levels of inequalities and disparities across the country.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR
