Sunyani (B/A) Feb. 16 GNA - The government is developing strategies for good governance and rural development to provide opportunities and institutional framework for overall poverty reduction, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Mr Kwadwo Adjei-Darko said in Sunyani on Monday.

He said the strategies included wealth creation using a people-centred development approach that would foster popular participation, transparency and accountability through institutionalised and well-motivated channels.

Mr. Adjei-Darko, Member of Parliament for Sunyani West, was speaking at the launch of the Poverty Reduction Support Programme (PRSP) of the Local Government and Rural Development and German Development Cooperation (GTZ), in Sunyani on Monday.

He noted that channelling the bulk of poverty reduction interventions through the decentralized local government structures and empowering civil society to demand accountability and transparency enhanced the close link between good local governance and poverty reduction.

The Minister expressed appreciation for the cooperation between Ghana and Germany, specifically between GTZ, KFW and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

Mr Peter Linder, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, said Ghana was a priority partner for his government's cooperation, adding that FRG supported the regional peace policy of Ghana, particularly in the present role of President John Agyekum Kufuor's chairmanship of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). He said Germany welcomed Ghana's attitude towards NEPAD and saw the thriving democracy, transparency and good governance as positive developments.

Mr Wolfram Fischer, a German-team leader of the LG-PRSP, explained to the participants that included District Chief Executives, Regional Coordinating Directors, District Coordinating Directors, Presiding Members from Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions and other stakeholders in the decentralization programme, that the districts would be measured by how and in which ways they would use the services provided through the Ghanaian-German co-operation.

He said the success of the programme would be measured by how well markets had been organized, managed and maintained. Mr Fischer mentioned "Poverty Mapping" or pro-poor development planning as a tool designed to identify the causes of poverty in some pockets of the district as well as to find out, how people had learned to cope with their situation.

The Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, Nana Kwadwo Seinti who launched the programme said the decentralization programme was designed to achieve a fundamental re-structuring of the machinery of government to create democratic governance, to bring about greater efficiency and productivity of state machinery through the involvement and effective participation by the people at all levels in administration.

He said the Government had established agencies such as the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs to cater for the specific needs of women, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged.

The main components of the strategy were the upgrading of infrastructure and services in disadvantaged rural communities, providing access to means of production and resources to enable the vulnerable groups and the unemployed to engage in income generating activities especially in agriculture and agro processing and nurturing the private sector to become the driving force behind the country's economy among others.

He appealed to other donors and development partners to emulate the GTZ/KWF and join the struggle to lift Ghana out of the doldrums to propel it to become a middle-income country by the targeted year of 2010 or thereabout.

Nana Kwame Korang VI, Omanhene of Odomase No. Two and Vice-President of Brong-Ahafo Regional House of Chiefs, presided.