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Ghana

THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP LOCAL PROGRAMME

Background

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) brings together governments, citizens, civil society organizations, academia and the private sector to promote more transparent, accountable, responsive and inclusive governance. OGP achieves this vision by recognizing the key role that local governments play by being closer to the people they serve. Cities, states, regions, provinces, counties and other jurisdictions deliver crucial services that require effective and responsive local governments. That is why OGP seeks to support local open government champions to adopt innovative open government reforms. It is increasingly clear that collaboration, transparency, and citizen participation are fundamental pillars for any modern, responsive and agile government.

How to Join OGP Local

Any local jurisdiction from a current OGP member country in good standing can apply to join OGP Local. There is no population threshold, nor is there a limit to the number of local members from the same OGP country that can join OGP Local. In order to become a member, local jurisdictions must meet the eligibility criteria and submit a Letter of Support.  The calls for applications to join OGP Local will be announced by the OGP Support Unit on a periodic basis. 

Eligibility Criteria

A minimum set of eligibility criteria is required to join OGP Local to ensure adequate conditions for developing and implementing an action plan. 

The following presents the eligibility criteria for becoming an OGP Local member:

  • Commitment of political leader(s) as evidenced in the Letter of Support (LOS) from the head of local government and commitment of the non-governmental stakeholder leader(s).
  • Track record on open government or co-creation with non-governmental stakeholders in at least one open government reform or successful example of co-creation in the past three years. This can include participation in national open government initiatives.
  • At least 16 months left in the term of the current [local government] administration to ensure it can participate and conclude the action plan process without interruptions.
  • Demonstrable ambition of future directions of open government action in the jurisdiction and their alignment with OGP’s strategic and thematic priorities, especially as it relates to engagement of citizens in shaping and overseeing policies and services.
  • Existing capacity and resources for co-creation and implementation, including identified staff in government and identified civil society/non-government counterpart(s).
  • Clarity on available mechanisms for co-creation and monitoring.
  • Clarity of value proposition or benefit for the jurisdiction in joining OGP.
  • Willingness to participate in peer learning and sharing experiences with other OGP Local members

Application Process

The OGP Support Unit will announce periodic calls for new members to join OGP Local, at which time the details of the process and timelines will be published. During open calls for new members, a local government that meets eligibility criteria and wants to join OGP must submit a Letter of Support (LOS). This LOS should be three (3) pages maximum on the local government’s letterhead, in English, supporting the application of their jurisdiction and committing to meeting OGP values and the above criteria. It must be signed by the head of the local government or a senior official with delegated authority, and at least one (1) non-governmental stakeholder willing to support and be part of the OGP Local process. 

The Letter of Support must address:

  1. A commitment to meet the OGP Values and criteria as described above.
  2. A clear description of the value proposition or benefit for the local jurisdiction in joining OGP Local.
  3. Ambition of future directions of open government action, including priority thematic areas the local jurisdiction wishes to advance and their alignment with OGP’s strategic and thematic priorities, especially as it relates to engagement of citizens in shaping and overseeing policies and services.
  4. Capacity and resources for co-creation and implementation, including the identification of a responsible agency in government and the main non-governmental stakeholders supporting the application.
  5. Track record on open government or co-creation with non-governmental stakeholders, highlighting at least one open government reform or successful example of public policy co-creation in the past three years.
  6. Thematic policy areas where they can contribute good practices and lessons for other members of OGP Local.
  7. Willingness to participate in peer learning and sharing experiences with other OGP Local members in their respective countries and thematic circles.
  8. Details of how they can help spread the practice of open local government amongst other locals in their jurisdictions.

The Letters of Support will be assessed by the Support Unit based on the criteria outlined above. In addition, other factors will be considered to ensure a diverse cohort, such as regional balance, type of jurisdiction and population size, as well as different strengths to complement the overall objectives of OGP Local.
Specific guidance and examples will be provided by the Support Unit at the start of a call for new members. 
Unsuccessful applicants will be invited to participate in the OGP Local community of practice, and will be connected to their country’s OGP National coordination in order to explore further support, activities and learning opportunities.

THE 1ST OGP LOCAL COHORT

In 2015 OGP announced a call for subnational participation in the partnership. 14th April 2016 there was a Press Release: Fifteen Local Governments Chosen for International Open Government Partnership Pilot Program https://www.opengovpartnership.org/stories/press-release-fifteen-local-governments-chosen-for-international-open-government-partnership-pilot-program/ to announced the selection of 15 local government. “This first cohort, chosen from close to 50 applicants, will join a broader network of reformers and work with OGP to advance their existing open government programs. They have each committed to work with civil society groups and citizens, in order to share ideas about how to reform government and to develop specific commitments. OGP has an Independent Reporting Mechanism, which will recruit researchers in each area to assess the implementation of these commitments and hold the governments to account for their progress”.
Governments chosen for the subnational pilot project are: Austin, US; Buenos Aires, Argentina: Jalisco, Mexico: La Libertad, Peru; Ontario, Canada; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Egeyo-Marakwet County, Kenya; Kigoma Municipality, Tanzania; Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana; Madrid, Spain; Paris, France; Scotland, UK; Bojonegoro, Indonesia; Seoul, Korea and Tbilisi, Georgia.

Expansion of the Program

Since the 1st cohort selection in 2016, the program has seen an expansion from 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 leading to the selection of new local government.

OGP LOCAL IN GHANA

Ghana has a total of Seven (7) members out of the 163 OGP Local Membership as at 2024. Ghana’s OGP Local program begun in 2016 when Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly was competitively selected among the 15 pioneer members in 2016. Shama District Assembly was selected among the 2nd cohort in 2020. This followed by Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly, Wassa Amanfi Municipal Assembly, Ketu South Municipal Assembly and Anloga District Assembly in 2022. The final to the list is Tamale Metropolitan Assembly in 2024. Below are the OGP Local Members in Ghana.

1. Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA), Western Region

The city Sekondi-Takoradi is the 3rd largest city in Ghana, after Accra and Kumasi. It is located on the southern-western coast of the Republic of Ghana, about 242km west of the national capital, Accra, and 280km east of La Cote D’Ivoire. Sekondi-Takoradi is the capital of the Western Region of Ghana, known popularly as the ‘Twin-City’ and the only ‘Oil City’.
The demographic set-up of the metropolis indicates a total population of 245,382; with 48.6% males and 51.4% female according to the 2021 Population and Housing Census. Urban population of 85%, per-urban population of 11% and rural population of 4%. STMA covers a land area of 66.44km2   
The growth of the twin-city of Sekondi-Takoradi in the last decade has been spurred by the advantages conferred on the city by the oil-find in the Western Region of Ghana in 2007 and the entrepreneurial capacity nurtured through sequence of private, in the form of downstream oil ancillary services and hospitality industry, and government actions through infrastructural development. Sekondi-Takoradi is also a key hub for the railway network in the country and has an airport for domestic flights.
The major economic activities and the percentage it employs are Industry (19.1%) Agriculture (21%) and Services (59.9%). 84.6% of the employed are in the private sector and 69.3% of these private sector players are in the informal sector. Commerce and Industry-related activities are the major contributors to the local economy. The economy of the Metropolis is propelled by fishing, service (trading, administration, and industrial activities).
The Metropolis boasts of some tourist sites and there exists enormous potential to develop these sites into major tourism destinations in Ghana. The sites include Fort Orange and the colonial High Court Building in Sekondi, as well as the Monkey Hill and Ghana’s first Seaport in Takoradi. The city has a rich cultural heritage which is exhibited during celebrations of annual Kundum Festival between June and July, Masquerades Carnival in December and ‘Yesu Asor’ as part of the easter festivities.
As a budding and increasingly urbanized metropolis: population pressures on municipal services, diminishing of social safety-nets for the vulnerable, and the effects of urban sprawl and climate change are some of the perennial challenges confronting Sekondi-Takoradi. Critical to addressing these urban challenges is implementing strategies that results in a safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable city that links sustainable development to livelihood improvement for all. This has found expression in the city’s 4-year Medium-Term Plan (2022-2025) that aligns with its overall vision of being a world-class city with modern infrastructure, social services, best governance, attractive business and living environment, and is in harmony with the national development focus.

Open Government Partnership (OGP) Journey

By virtue of Ghana’s membership, the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) became eligible to apply for and participated in the subnational pilot program organized by the OGP in 2015. The pilot program for Subnational Government was a way of giving meaning to the tenets of OGP at the grassroots level through the efforts of Local Governments, Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) and most importantly, the involvement of citizens to spur change.
In 2016, STMA was competitively selected among fifteen subnational government across the globe. As a member of the 2016 pioneering cohort of the Open Government Partnership’s (OGP) Sub-national Pilot Program, now OGP Local, STMA together with its partner civil society organizations and other local reformers have done significant work to promote and institutionalize the ethos of the OGP at the sub-national level; through the co-creation and implementation of two (2) transformational local action plans; open government vision of “building a responsive and sustainable city government that commands the trust and confidence of citizens’’ with commitments in the areas of infrastructure transparency, access to information, inclusive participation, and citizen-centric municipal service delivery. Co-created the 3rd OGP Local Action 2022-2025 and published by the OGP International at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/sekondi-takoradi-ghana/#commitments in August 2022 focuses on enhancing effectiveness in municipal service delivery, strengthening government accountability, and broadening the civic space for ordinary citizens and civil society to actively participate in local governance. STMA to join CoST - the Infrastructure Transparency Initiative in 2018. 

Sister-City Relations

Sekondi-Takoradi over the past decades has engaged in sister-city city-to-city partnerships to explore possible areas of cooperation, learning and sharing of expertise in best practices in sustainable urban management. Sekondi-Takoradi has twining-relationships with Plymouth in the United Kingdom, Oakland-California in the United States of America and the Municipality of Palermo in Italy.

Priority Areas for International Collaborations

  1. Promote Smart-City Management and Climate Resilience: As a budding metropolis with numerous challenges brought on as a result of urban sprawl, Sekondi-Takoradi aspires to be a city that creates an enabling environment for residents to enjoy the benefits of urban life through interventions that range from poverty reduction, exclusion and unemployment to environmental degradation and climate change. Rapid advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and big data analytics are creating opportunities for city managers to address several challenges and help communities to deal with climate change challenges and to make advances towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Accordingly, the city of Sekondi-Takoradi is embracing this digital transition to enhance city management and the use of big data to deliver on municipal services and address the effects of urban sprawl and climate change. In furtherance of this, the city seeks to enter into mutually beneficial transnational relationships that enhances its ability to undertake peer-to-peer job-shadowing and capacity building on city management and urban revitalization, digital transitioning through e-governance tools and resilience of the city.
  2. Promote Mutual Transnational Cooperation for Tourism and Socio-Economic Development: To explore the potentialities of tourism and cultural heritage to spur socio-economic development, Sekondi-Takoradi would explore partnerships that create new income and employment opportunities through taking advantage of the rich cultural heritage and the numerous natural assets in partner cities for a mutually beneficial partnership. In this regard, it is expected that relations with a sister-city should jointly address heritage conservation, community development, and tourism objectives to create positive synergies that stimulate local economic development for all partners.
  3. Promote Academic and Research Initiative: Educational partnerships and developments, including joint research and teaching programmes provides platforms for creating mutually beneficial and deeper understanding between partner cities. Such twining relationships would serve a means of intercity collaborations in academic researches that have the potential to bridge the knowledge divide in creating sustainable cities for partners.
2. Shama District Assembly (SDA), Western Region:
The Shama District was created by a Legislative Instrument (LI 1882) in December, 2007 as the highest Political and Administrative Authority, pursuant to section 12 of the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936), and thus became one of the fourteen (14) administrative Districts in the Western Region, promoting and executing development in its jurisdiction. The district was carved out of the former Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly (SAEMA) with Shama town as its administrative Capital. Officially, it was inaugurated in March 2008. Shama joined OGP as part of the 2020 cohort. They are currently implementing five commitments from their 2021-2024 action plan. This action plan features commitments related to gender, anti-corruption, fiscal openness, and public service delivery.

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/action-plan-shama-ghana-2021-2024/

Local governance has been touted as the tool for rapid development, providing a quicker, less costly, more accessible service and delivers the felt needs of the people. However, this cannot be achieved without an open and transparent governance system. Conscious of this, we decided join the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in October, 2020 to secure concrete commitments from national and subnational governments to promote open government, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.


3. Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality Assembly (TNMA), Western Region

Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality is one of the 14 administrative MMDAs in the Western Region of Ghana. It is located between Latitude 400’N and 504’N and Longitude 1045’W and 201’W. It shares boundaries with Prestea Huni-Valley District to the north, Nzema East District to the West, Ahanta West District to the South and Mpohor District to the East. The Municipality has a total land area of 978.26 sq. Km
The Municipality in terms of trade, is strategically located since it is able to transact business with all the four other districts it shares boundaries with. Its location makes transportation of goods and services to and from the Municipality easy, encouraging inter district trade, thus boosting economic activities.
FunctionsThe Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Assembly just like all the MMDAs in Ghana derives its mandate and functions from the Local Governance Act, 2016 Act 936 section 12 sub section (1) to (9).
Tarkwa Nsuaem joined OGP as part of the 2022 cohort. They are currently implementing four commitments from their 2022-2024 action plan.

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/action-plan-tarkwa-nsuaem-ghana-2022-2024/

This action plan features commitments related to improving transparency and accountability, improving the participation of women and other vulnerable groups, and enhancing civic participation.
The current Action Plan was strategically co-created with multi-stakeholder engagements which include civil society organisations led by Friends of the Nation, State and Non-State Actors and citizens of the municipality to establish and own the values of open government partnership as a worthy approach to shape governance and deliver better living standards for the people we serve.

4. Wassa Amenfi East Municipal Assembly (WAEMA), Western Region

Wassa Amenfi East Municipal is one of the fourteen districts in Western Region, Ghana. Originally it was formerly part of the then-larger Wassa Amenfi District in 1988, which was created from the former Aowin-Amenfi District Council, until the eastern part of the district was split off to create Wassa Amenfi East District in August 2004; thus, the remaining part has been renamed as Wassa Amenfi West District. However, on 15 March 2018, it was later elevated to municipal district assembly status to become Wassa Amenfi East Municipal District. The municipality is located in the northern part of Western Region and has Wassa-Akropong as its capital town.
Wassa Amenfi East joined OGP as part of the 2022 cohort. They are currently implementing four commitments from their 2022-2024 action plan. This action plan features commitments related to participatory budgeting, civic space, climate, and inclusion.

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/action-plan-wassa-amenfi-east-ghana-2022-2024/

The Wassa Amenfi East Municipal Assembly joined the OGP in March 2022 in order to take advantage of the advantages that a multilateral initiative would provide in fostering constructive interactions between local reformers in the provision of innovative local solutions that advance the realization of participatory and inclusive governance in our local government system.
The Municipal Assembly acknowledges that the OGP values serve as essential guiding principles that guarantee that public resources are efficiently and effectively used, local public policies are created with citizens’ best interests in mind, and that public officials act ethically to ensure the best services to the public.

5. Anloga District Assembly (ADA), Volta Region

Anloga District, with Anloga as the capital is one of the 18 Administrative Municipal/Districts of the Volta Region of Ghana. It was carved out of the Keta Municipal in 2018. The Anloga District Assembly was established by the Legislative Instrument (L.I.) 2372 of 2018 and inaugurated on the 19 th of February 2019. Location and size The District is located east of the Volta estuary, about 160km to the east of Accra, off the Accra-Aflao main road and lies within Longitudes 0.53E and 0.89W and Latitudes 5.47N and 5.79S. It shares common borders with Keta District to the east, South Tongu District to the west, Akatsi South district to the North and the Gulf of Guinea to the south.
Anloga District joined OGP as part of the 2022 cohort. They are currently implementing two commitments from their 2023-2024 action plan.

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/action-plan-anloga-district-ghana-2023-2024/

This action plan features commitments related to climate and environment, social accountability, civic space, and inclusion. Recognizing the strategic objective of the Open Government Partnership program which is based on the idea that governments should be more transparent, inclusive, participatory, and accountable to citizens, the Anloga District Assembly is among two Assemblies in the Volta Region of Ghana to join the OGP platform in 2022. As a Local government institution, the district is committed to ensuring good governance through transparency, effective citizen participation, and accountability in our service delivery.

6. Ketu South Municipal Assembly (KSMA), Volta Region

Ketu District is a former district that was located in Volta Region, Ghana. Originally created as an ordinary district assembly on 10 March 1989, which was created from the former Anlo District Council. However, on 29 February 2008, it was split off into two new districts: Ketu South District (which it was elevated to municipal district assembly status on 28 June 2012; capital: Denu) and Ketu North District (which it was also elevated to municipal district assembly status on 15 March 2018; capital: Dzodze). The district assembly was located in the southeast part of Volta Region and had Denu as its capital town.
Ketu South joined OGP as part of the 2022 cohort. The co-creation process between the government and civil society is currently ongoing to deliver their action plan.

7. Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA), Northern Region

The Tamale Metropolitan Assembly was established by legislative instrument (L.I. 2068). Currently, it is one of the six Metropolitan Assemblies in the country and the only Metropolis in the five regions of Northern Ghana namely: the Upper East, Upper West, Northern, North East and Savannah regions. Tamale is the Metropolitan Capital as well as the regional capital of the Northern Region. The North East and Savannah regions were part of the Northern region until they were created by referenda in December 2018.
The Tamale Metropolis is one of the 16 MMDA’s in the Northern Region. It is located in the central part of the Region and shares boundaries with the Sagnarigu Municipality to the North-West, Mion District to the East, East Gonja to the South and Central Gonja to the South-West.
Tamale is strategically located in the Northern Region and by this strategic location, the Metropolis has a market potential for local goods from the agricultural and commercial sectors from the other districts in the region and the southern part of Ghana. By its location, the Metropolis stands to gain in trade from some neighbouring West African countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Togo. The Metropolis has a total estimated land size of 646.9sqkm (2010 PHC Report). Geographically, the Metropolis lies between latitude 9º16 and 9º 34 North and longitudes 0º 36 and 0º 57 west.
Tamale joined OGP as part of the 2024 cohort. The co-creation process between government and civil society is currently ongoing.

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