Realities of Infrastructure Planning at the District
It was not always easy working in the engineering consulting industry in Canada. I often had 6 clients to deal with, each with their separate demands. It was difficult to keep track of them all. At any given moment, many issues would arise that would have to be resolved at once. I could have passed off some activities to my co-workers but it would have taken me the same amount of time to delegate and train as it would take to do the work myself.
Do you ever feel the same pressure at work?
Well, this is exactly what it’s like to be a District Planning Officer in the Northern Region of Ghana. Most planning and implementation is performed through the decentralized districts in Ghana. Donors come with their own project-specific demands, targeting sectors like health, water & sanitation, and education. Districts often have more than 10 donor projects, each with their own approach for submitting proposals, writing reports, and conducting monitoring visits. The District Planning Officer, being the hub of planning at the district, is required to oversea all the projects. The demands are so high that the planner often does not have time to think about creating effective long-term systems, and is forced to be reactive in responding to project-specific demands. Ideally, the district would have reliable up-to-date data, would have the capacity to analyse the data, and would be able to create prioritized plans that would have the blessing of donors and national government.
The core of our strategy in the Governance and Rural Infrastructure (G&RI) team revolves around the planning cycle. At the districts, we support the district planning officers in strengthening the district systems through the collection, management, and analysis of data which is used for creating evidence-based strategic plans. But beyond these hard skills, there are some deeply rooted reasons why district planning is challenging.
The G&RI team recently worked with our counterparts at the districts and region to put together three briefing papers, which have been circulated amongst the Government of Ghana and many donor agencies in Accra. Quite often donors and the national government create programs and policies that do not make practical sense at the field level. Our team is starting to be recognized for understanding the realities at the field level, and being able to communicate them upward.
Enjoy the read, and feel free to bounce questions and ideas off of me.
Briefing Paper 1: Disincentives
Briefing Paper 2: Coordination
Briefing Paper 3: Capacity Development vs. Poverty Reduction