Accra, Dec. 7, GNA - Civil Society Organisations (CSO) under the umbrella of Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) on Tuesday started capacity building training for district coordinators across the southern sector of the country to rejuvenate enthusiasm in the December 28 District Level Elections (DLE).

Professor Kwame Ninsin, Scholar-in-Residence of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), organisers of the training, said even though the decentralisation programme was developed to provide greater space and opportunity for grassroots participation in the governance process, the extent of citizens' participation in DLE had been low. The IDEG/CFI strategy involves voter education to ensure significant level of publicity on the 2010 local government elections in 30 districts nation wide.

He said the training was civil society's effort to overcome the general sense of apathy which characterised past local government elections and generated interest in the election. Prof Ninsin said participants would also be equipped as voter educators to understand the local government systems in Ghana, the relevance of DLE, citizens and decentralisation, community education. Father Patrick Amos, CFI Representative in Ghana, said CFI, a coalition of CSO, was committed to assist in the delivery of credible, transparent, free and fair elections in Ghana. He said over the last two decades, Ghana had made remarkable strides in its efforts at managing elections and consolidating democracy. However, efforts at deepening decentralisation and local governance had been weak, he said, and called for active participation to ensure that local governance was enhanced.