Input of voiceless should reflect in policies - Loetzer

Tamale, March 22, GNA - Mr Klaus D. Loetzer, Resident Representative of Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation (KAS), on Thursday said input of the underprivileged and voiceless at the local level should reflect in the policy process of the nation.

"Development must emanate from the bottom to complement the national agenda," he said.

He was speaking at a week's Training of Trainers' workshop organized by KAS - Tamale Ecclesiastical Province Pastoral Conference (TEPPCON), a social wing of the Catholic Church in the three northern regions civic education programme to educate trainees on a manual developed three years ago entitled "Good Governance and Development at the Local Level."

The manual, which is to be used in training trainers for community development, was developed to promote the nexus between good governance and development at the local level.

Mr Loetzer said the workshop was also to improve the roles of the assembly members in the three northern regions and noted that, this was in line with KAS' objectives of training prospective assembly women in campaign, lobbying strategies and effective communication. According to him, the partnership with TEPPCON was a special relationship, in the sense that TEPPCON worked with the local and community-based organisations to facilitate socio-economic development. "Fortunately some of these women and men trained by KAS won the district level elections and others were appointed," Mr Loetzer said. He added that it was his hope that their modest contributions would yield results because the decentralised system required men and women who understood the political process of their community and the decentralised instruments, bye laws and various local government legislations. Decentralisation itself, he noted, was a political process, which should be fought for because it was a struggle between the centre and the local community.

He urged assemblymen and women to team up with the traditional rulers to bring development to the people.

"As Assembly members, you are the frontline development agents of your community. Therefore the training which you are undertaking to be shared with other development actors is extremely significant for the sustainable development outcomes of the country."

In his welcoming address, the Most Reverend Gregory Kpiebaya, Catholic Archbishop of Tamale, said good governance and development at the local level were very relevant, especially in the north where development was lagging behind.

"Invariably, when we talk of good governance everyone is thinking of the central government; good governance is everyone's business. It must begin with you and me. It must begin at the lowest level of governance. It must begin locally," he said.

He said the purpose of the Civic Education Programme undertaken by TEPPCON was to empower people to initiate good governance locally. "Never give in to the fatalistic philosophy: 91what can we do? We are powerless'. You can change the system by changing things locally," he told the trainees