Coordinating Directors within the Local Government Service face enormous challenges in the performance of their roles which include being the administrative head of the office of District Assembly and Co-ordinating the activities of the departments of the District Assembly. The CD also ensures that the functions and responsibilities of the District Assembly are efficiently and effectively carried out.
Moreso, the position, which was hitherto the preserve of officers in the Administrative Class, is now open to all classes including Agriculture, Physical Planning, Engineering, Social Welfare and Community Development, Environmental Health and Sanitation, among others due to reforms in local governance administration. This calls for regular training of the officers to not only understand the nuances of the work as specified in the Scheme of Service, but a hands-on training by practitioners who have seen it all through.
Performance of these functions and other unwritten roles requires self-knowledge and ecological awareness. Management of the Service thus agreed to deploy resources available from DPAT under the Generic Capacity Building Component (GCBC) for a peer knowledge exchange workshop with the aim of building the administrative/managerial and technical expertise of coordinating directors to enhance service delivery and to gather information to develop tailor –made operational guide for the office of a Co-ordinating Director. The German Development Agency (GIZ) partnered in implementing this workshop under the Governance for Inclusive Development (GoVID) programme.
To ensure effective contact of the target participants, the country was zoned into four (4), with zones meeting at Tamale, Kumasi, Ho and Elmina respectively. The workshop was held from Wednesday, 6th to Saturday, 23rd September 2023. More than 90% of the District Coordinating Directors participated. Facilitators were chosen from among retired Chief Directors/Coordinating Directors and serving Chief Directors.
Topics discussed were: Management of Co-ordinating Directors Relationship with the Political Class, Traditional Authorities and other key actors at the local level, Causes and Effects of Conflict from Internal/External Stakeholders that affect the activities of the MMDAs as well as Strategic approaches for managing them, Grievance/Discipline in the Local Government Service and Strategic Approaches for managing them, Managing Demands, Interests and Responsibilities of other Public Sector Organizations as well as Development Partners, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Participants also shared their knowledge and experience in these areas to form the basis for the development of the operational guide for the office of the Co-ordinating Director.
Participants expressed appreciation to the Head of Service, the Chief Director, Officers at the OHLGS and leadership and officers of GiZ for organizing such an impactful workshop. They prayed that such programmes would be organized periodically to enable knowledge sharing among Coordinating Directors.