STAR-Ghana in partnership with Humentum (formerly known as MANGO), a consortium partner of the STAR-Ghana programme has organised a financial management training for some selected Grant Partners of the STAR-Ghana programme. The training was informed by due diligence assessments of partners under the Anti-corruption and Local Governance Calls of the programme
STAR-Ghana conducted due diligence of its partners beginning April to June 2018 to assess prospective grant partners’ capacity on financial management. The assessment established some capacity gaps that existed within some organizations.
The areas of concern included but not limited to financial planning, financial monitoring and reporting, internal controls and audit management. The training was attended by one programme officer and one finance officer from each of the selected organizations.
The purpose of the training was to strengthen the capacity of participants in financial management which will directly support partners to meet STAR-Ghana’s requirements for financial management and for the financial sustainability of the selected organizations beyond STAR-Ghana’s support.
The training – wholly participatory and activity based, focussed on the key principles and concepts of financial management, financial planning, accounting records, financial monitoring, and internal control systems.
Participants expressed their appreciation of the content of the training and embraced the opportunity to have financial accompanier who will be deployed by STAR-Ghana to provide further support in the course of their respective project implementation.
The event was organised in three different locations across the country: from the 18th to the 26th of September 2018. Specifically: 18th - 20th Accra, 24th - 26th Ho and Kumasi concurrently. A total of 64 participants from 32 grantees participated in the training which was facilitated by two (2) Associates of Humentum with support from the Gender Equality and Capacity Building workstream of STAR-Ghana.
Related projects
National Convening – Northern Ghana beyond Aid
STAR-Ghana in collaboration with the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), TAMA Foundation and the Northern Development Authority (NDA) held the Northern Sector edition of a high-level conference on Ghana Beyond Aid in Bolgatanga.
The two-day conference which brought together the academia, Civil Society Organizations, Regional Ministers, Municipal and District Chief Executives, traditional and religious leaders in Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions, forms part of STAR-Ghana’s series of Convenings with the broader range of stakeholders for dialogue, and to support the identification of opportunities and critical entry points for action and engagement.
Hon Frank Fuseini, delivering the welcome address indicated that: Ghana beyond Aid is in tune with the changing world with a move from aid and grants to partnerships and development cooperation. “Northern Ghana must prepare itself to take advantage of the new paradigm of Ghana Beyond Aid. To this extent, Foreign Development Assistance must be redirected to building social infrastructure" he said.
Prof Agnes Apusigah, member of the STAR-Ghana (SC) speaking on behalf of Dr Esther Esther Ofei Aboagye, Chairperson of the the STAR-Ghana SC. Said that "STAR-Ghana has a consistent and deliberate agenda to ensure civil society thinks around the issue of sustainability within the ever-changing environment, using our 3CL (Convening, Coordinating, Catalyzing and Learning) approach as a means of promoting strategic change in a coordinated manner"
In an address read on his behalf, Hon Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Senior minister, said the drive to move the country beyond aid does not mean Ghana would be refusing to accept development aid. The government would rather make sure that donor support tied in with development priorities of the nation. “We will politely decline aid that is not in line with Ghana’s development priorities.” It should also be consistent with the effort at increasing efficiency and value for money in public sector expenditures.
Mr. Osafo-Maafo noted that the three regions were a popular destination for aid and direct donor support and said, “While this is welcoming, it is important to take stock and see if we are indeed achieving the expected impact”. He made reference to the dwindling volumes of aid and indicated that it was time the nation moved aggressively towards modernizing its agriculture.
Dr Hakeem Wemah, Board Chairman of the Northern Development Authority and Chairman of the high-Level conference, said the area had been and remained a major beneficiary of development assistance because of the level and depth of poverty.
Grant-aided programs had financed education, health care, agriculture, roads and bridges, nutrition interventions, school feeding and occasionally humanitarian relief when the people were faced disasters like flooding.
“We recall the Upper Region Agricultural Development Programme (URADEP) largely World Bank funded, which was the main driver of agricultural transformation in the 1970s and 1980s in the Upper Regions, Northern Regional Rural Integrated Programme (NORRIP) largely funded by Canada which invested in water resources and social programmes in the Northern Region. Both died when donor funds ceased. No post-mortem was ever carried out,” Dr Wemah added.
The output of the conference will be channelled to the Hon Osafo Maafo Committee and shared with constituencies, especially civil society at the regional level to map out a strategy going forward.
Staff Retreat: Time for Reflection and Strategizing
The STAR-Ghana Programme Management Team (PMT) converged at the Beige Village, New Abirem in the Eastern region of Ghana for a 3-day team retreat. The purpose of the retreat was to review and revise the programme’s work plan and budget for the 2018/2019 calendar year and build a shared understanding within the team about what’s working well, areas in need of improvement and areas of opportunity. Other objectives of the retreat were to provide space for the team to bond as well as review priorities around the Programme’s transition into an independent Ghanaian owned entity and the launch of same.
Opening
In his opening remarks, Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, Programme Director urged the team to look deep into themselves and reflect on their respective contributions to the Team over the past year “let us reflect and maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses” he said.
Ibrahim-Tanko, referencing the Programme’s annual review report, further encouraged frank conversations among the team during the retreat and emphasized the need for the team to focus on strengthening among others: the programme’s strategic communications and enhance its adherence to budget even as the programme transitions into a new entity beginning October 2018.
The 2017/2018 calendar year in retrospect
The various workstreams of the programme did an analysis of their respective workplans and achievements thereof in 2017/2018 calendar year. This was followed by a plenary discussion on the highlights and lessons learnt for the programme during the year under review. The workstreams included: Monitoring and Evaluation, Communications and Learning, Parliamentary, Finance and the Operations workstreams. Others are the Gender Equality, Social Inclusion and Capacity Building, Grants and the Programme management workstreams.
Strategizing for Impact
Based on the learning gathered from the previous calendar year and the programme’s focus on transitioning into a new independent entity, each workstream developed their key priority areas for the 2018/2019 calendar year and shared same with the entire Team using the 'global cafe' approach. The workstreams subsequently further developed their respective priority areas into activity plans and detailed budgets for the 2018/2019 calendar year. The session was preceded by the introduction of a revised work planning template developed and shared by Harriet Asomani, the Head of Finance. The Workstream leads supported their respective teams to develop detailed plans and budgets.
STAR-Ghana Transition
Teiko Sabah, Head of Programmes, brought the team up to speed on the status of the STAR-Ghana transition process. On her part, Mabel Viviey, the Communications and Learning Manager and member of the planning committee for the launch of the entity updated the team on the activities lined up for the launch of the new entity.
New Joiners
The team has been joined by four new staff members as follows: two Programme Finance Officers: Mary Sabbah, Godfred Fiifi Mensah; one M&E Officer, Emmanuel Osei-Mensah one Programme Support Officer, Bless Ahiakonu
Team Building
Under the coordination of the Head of Operations, Wendy Boamah, a series of outdoor team building exercises and evening events were organised to among other reasons: improve networking, socialization, teamwork, collaboration and the fostering of innovation and creativity among the PMT in a relaxed and entertaining atmosphere.
At the end of the three-day retreat, each workstream successfully developed and shared their respective Action plans and joint workplans for the 2018/2019 calendar year. Members of the PMT expressed a better appreciation of the programme’s transition process.
Using Mobile Technology to Monitor Service Delivery at the major Hospitals in Tamale Metro
Community Volunteers and administrators of the major Government hospitals in the Tamale Metro of the Northern Region of Ghana have been trained to use short messaging services (SMS) on their mobile phones to report and respond to issues affecting service delivery in the respective hospitals.
The training was organized by Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development (CALID) as part of activities of the “Fighting Unapproved Charges for Health Services” Project. The Project has a special focus on 3 health facilities; Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), Tamale Central Hospital and The Tamale West Hospital.
The one-year project is supported by STAR-Ghana under its Anti-Corruption Call with funding from the UKAid, DANIDA and the European Union (EU). The overall objective of the project is to contribute to an improvement in the Quality of health care delivery to citizens in the Tamale Metropolis as a result of the elimination of unapproved charges by health officials.
Information gathered by CALID from some citizens has revealed that: some staff of the selected hospitals have been charging patients and pregnant women illegal fees which often, are not receipted. For instance, it is in the public domain that hospital staff at the theatre demanded or collected an amount of GHC 200.00 from pregnant women before they were attended to.
Additionally, there have been allegations of Clients who go to retrieve the bodies of their deceased relatives and were asked to pay GHC90.00 but received a receipt of GHC50.00” Mohammed Awal Sumani Bapio, Executive Director – CALID.
Mr Bapio further indicated that: Some family members and the youth are beginning to counter the situation with violence. “There was a situation where a community forcefully picked the corpse of a late member for processing for burial without paying for the unapproved fees. This resulted in chaos and near conflict situation. It took the Northern Regional Minister and other prime stakeholders to intercede” he said.
The STAR-Ghana SMS platform serves as a means of engagement between citizen representatives and administrative representatives of the respective selected hospitals. This will allow for constant flow of information between the two parties to address pertinent issues and avert any misinformation which could lead to violence.
The Citizen representatives are leading members of the League of Youth Coalition in Tamale. The League of Youth Coalition is a coalition of over fifty (50) Youth groups spread across the entire Tamale metropolis and the Sagnarigu District. The Coalition has representation from all the affiliate Youth groups who are elected by their respective Youth Associations to front their issues at the Coalition during their usual periodic meetings.
The leadership of the coalition intend engage with the appropriate State Actors to seek redress and feedback to the affected individuals using the name communication channel.
Participants at the training were sensitized on the various forms of services and payments at the hospitals. The citizen representatives expressed their satisfaction on the knowledge shared “With the information shared by the P.R.O., now we know the what questions to ask when we receive the reports” Mohammed Inusah, League of Youth Coalition.
Based on these learning, participants were taken through the relevance of information sharing, core principles and ethics of reporting, as well as some tit bits of mobile phone security to facilitate an effective process of using their mobile phones to provide feedback on the services received from the selected Hospitals.
Participants can now anonymously report issues of non-receipted payments, unavailability or otherwise of consumables, drugs among other services to the hospital administrators for redress. The SMS Platform allows both parties – the reporter and the duty bearer to rate the level of satisfaction of responses received and the relevance of the reports sent respectively.
Representatives of the selected hospitals embraced the platform as a useful tool to support their work: “our objective is to stop illegal collection of money and not to just arrest… with this platform, I can turn up at anyone’s desk and prove to them when they collected money without receipting, this I believe will deter the culprits” Dr. Ken Osei Mensah, P.R.O. Tamale Teaching Hospital.
In attendance were representatives of CALID, the League of Youth Coalition and STAR-Ghana.