In spite of huge budgetary allocations by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to fight against filth, none of these assemblies was certified open defecation free in the 2014 Ghana’s District League Table (DLT).

The DLT, an initiative of the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), was a simple ranking tool for measuring the level of development in each of Ghana’s 216 MMDAs. It was also to support government to better understand and monitor developments across the country while supporting citizens’ access to information and knowledge on their rights to such developments in their districts.

The imitative ranked MMDAs in terms of their delivery across six key public service sectors – health, governance, education, security, sanitation (open defecation free certification) and water (rural water coverage).

At the regional launch of their findings of the DLT with stakeholders in Bolgatanga, CDD-Ghana and UNICEF revealed that for sanitation, all MMDAs scored 0% because there was no assembly in Ghana that was certified as open defecation free.

This, therefore, meant that open defecation was still deeply established in all the assemblies. The assessment was conducted by the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

With a target score of 100% in the DLT, the Upper East Region scored 62% for the regional average scores nationwide placing 2nd out of 10 regions in terms of development levels. Examining the district scores, all the thirteen districts in the region had a score of 52% and above.

However, there was clearly a wide range in terms of development level between the district at the top and districts at the bottom. Bolgatanga Municipality, which placed 1st had an average top score of 70% while Binduri District, which placed 13th within the region, had the lowest average score of 52%. Bolgatanga Municipality, Bawku Municipality, Bongo, Nabdam and Bawku West districts were adjudged as doing better.

These districts scored between 7% and 12% points above the national average of 585 and between 3% and 8% points above the regional average of 62%. On top of the national DLT was Tano South District in the Brong Ahafo, with 75% while Karaga district in the Northern region was lying at the bottom of the table with 15%. Bolgatanga Municipality was ranked 15th with 70% score.

Research Officer at CDD Ghana, Mr. Mohammed Awal, stated that the aim of DLT was not to name and shame any district, but to support government better understand and monitor development across the country.

He added that variations between districts were high, the gap between the developed and underdeveloped districts was high and also accessing data for the various districts was a major challenge to the DLT. According to him, the DLT would be repeated annually.

Mr. Awal noted that the DLT could execute its purpose without the media disseminating information to every corner of the country, revealing that UNICEF and CDD-Ghana would continue with a second launch of DLT in 2015 and beyond.