The mission statement
The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development exists to promote the establishment and development of a vibrant and well resourced decentralised system of local government for the people of Ghana to ensure good governance and balanced rural based development.
This will be done by:

• Formulating, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and co-ordinating reform policies and programmes to democratise governance and decentralize the machinery of government.
• Reforming and energising local governments to serve effectively as institutions for mobilizing and harnessing local resources for local national administration and development.
• Facilitating the development of all human settlements through community and popular participation.
• Facilitating the promotion of a clean and healthy environment.
• Facilitating horticultural development.
• Improving the demographic database for development planning and management.
• Promoting orderly human settlement development.

The Ministry believes in efficiency, effectiveness and transparency.

Focus on the above will be based on two divisions:

1. Local government - Strong Structures, Revenue Mobilisation and Collection, and Sanitation.
2. Rural Development - Rural roads, Information and Communications Technology, Tourism and Agric Processing.

Objectives
The following objectives will be pursued by the Ministry in the Medium term (2003-2005)

1. To formulate appropriate policies and programmes to accelerate the implementation of decentralisation of the machinery of government. This is to avoid re-centralisation of government machinery.
2. To improve upon the human resources and institutional capacities for all levels of the decentralised government machinery (District, town and Unit)
3. To improve the capacity of communities and local government institutions to mobilise, and manage resources for accelerated rural and urban development.
4. To promote community based registration, collation, analysis and publication of data on all births and deaths occurring in Ghana.
5. To promote human development and sustain the orderly and healthy growth of rural and urban settlements in Ghana.
6. To monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of local government institutions for improved management performance.

Achievements
Organisational and Administrative Actions.

1. The Ministry, during the year under review successfully undertook the following celebrations as a means of creating awareness amongst Ghanaians;

i. Local Government Week - April 22 - 26, 2002 in Accra
ii. Sanitation Week - September 9 - 13, 2002 at Kasoa in Awutu-Senya District of Central Region
iii. Rural Development Week - November 11 - 15, 2002 at Kwasi Doi in Akwapem South District of Eastern Region


These celebrations have been instituted to be part of the Ministry's annual calendar of events.

2. The Monthly Regional District Chief Executives Meetings continued. Next year the meetings will be held on zonal basis and outside the district capitals. This is to bring local governance further down to the people.
3. The Hon Minister for Local Government and Rural Development and his two Deputies have visited all one hundred and ten District Assemblies to familiarize themselves with their operations. The last District visited was Hohoe in the Volta Region and was done by the Hon. Minister.
4. A Mid-Year Review Meeting of District Chief Executives was held on zonal basis.
5. The Annual Conference of DCEs was also held at Nkawkaw, a town that is neither Regional nor District Capital.
6. To improve the participation of women in the District Assemblies 50% of the 30% reserved for Government Appointees were allocated to women after the last District Level Election.
7. The new District Assemblies have been constituted and inaugurated after the District Level elections throughout the country.

Finance

1. The District Assemblies continued to make appreciable increases in revenue mobilisation and collection. These have been possible due to constant sensitisation by Hon. Minister and his Deputies to plug all the leakages in Assemblies revenue collection.
2. The Minister has paid a total of �265.2 billion to the Administrator - District Assemblies Common Fund for the year 2002 as against �188.7 billion in 2001.
3. To further strengthen transparency at the district level the Ministry has Published in the newspaper development projects both completed and on-going, initiated since January 7, 2001 when the NPP administration took the reins of government.
4. The Financial Memorandum for Local Governments-Act 54 has been reviewed.

District/Urban Infrastructure

A number of development projects have been initiated by District Assemblies Bolgatanga and Gushiegu-Karaga District Assemblies have built police stations at Zuarungu and Gushiegu respectively to improve security in the district. Wasa Amenfi and Nkwanta constructed courts to improve justice delivery and rule of law, extension of utilities to the new Kasoa Market to allow resettlement of traders and construction of schools, markets health care centers, portable water projects and commissioning of same are ongoing country-wide.