Background and Objectives:

The Ghana Municipal Finance and Management Initiative is a new initiative by the Government of Ghana, represented by the Ministries of Finance and Economic Planning and the new local government. The Cities Alliance, with the support of the World Bank and UN-HABITAT, sponsors the initiative.

The objective of the project is to assist the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to significantly increase their Internally Generated Funds (IGF), identify and find ways of blocking financial leakages and significantly improve their management and accounting systems. This will help to raise enough funds to meet the backlog of infrastructure and service delivery requirements, adequately provide for citizens’ needs, and gain public confidence.

Activities:
The main activities include:

• Production of Ghana Municipal Finance and Management Initiative Conference;
• Studies of existing fiscal and financial instruments in Ghana;
• Collation on laws and existing reports on Municipal Finance in Ghana;
• Studies on the Capacity of Municipal Finance and Management in MMDAs;
• Studies on potential pilot projects of selected MMDAs for development with private sector financing under Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs);
• Development of a draft Ghana Municipal Finance Bill.

 Results:

• Platform created for sensitisation and collation of local and international knowledge on Municipal Finance and Management;
• Report on Ghana Municipal Finance and Management Initiative. This report provides information on the financial situation of municipalities and what is needed to enable them to borrow from the financial market;
• Municipal finance bill developed for the country to address challenging laws that negatively restrict municipalities in their borrowing;
• Conducive atmosphere created for municipalities to meet the backlog and provide infrastructure and service delivery to MMDAs and the country as a whole;
• Strong public/private partnership created for infrastructure development in Ghana.