With a target score of hundred percent on the District League Table (DLT), the Central Region scored an average of 65.1 per cent, placing fifth out of the ten Regions of Ghana in terms of development.

This indicated that all the 22 Metropolitan Municipal and Districts Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Region scored above 50 per cent, while those that scored above 70 per cent increased from three in 2016 to five in 2017.

Mr Awal Mohammed, the Research Officer with the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) made this known at the Regional launch of the District League Table (DLT).

It was attended by MMDCEs, Coordinating Directors, Planning Officers and Heads of Decentralised Departments.

The programme was put together by CDD-Ghana and with funding from UNICEF as a tool for strengthening social accountability between the state and its citizens for development.

Mr Mohammed pointed out that though the scores have improved generally in the Region, yet there were no evidence of the level of improved well-being.

The Upper Denkyira East Municipal Assembly topped the table with a score of 76.12 per cent while Gomoa West District placed 20th in the Region with the lowest average score of 51.39 representing a 24.73 per cent.

The Region recorded five high ranked performing districts including Upper Denkyira East, Awutu Senya, Awutu Senya East, Upper Denkyira West and Agona West with 8.02 and 11.42 percentage points above the Regional average score of 65.1 per cent.

Meanwhile, Twifo Hemang Lower Denkyira, Effutu Municipal, Cape Coast Metro, Agona East and Goamoa West were at the bottom of the Regional table with scores between 2.83 and 13.34 percentage points below the national and Regional scores of 64.7 and 65.1 per cent respectively.

Considering the scores of each district in the sector indicators, the top five assemblies scored high points ranging between 68 and 100 per cent on education, health, water, security and governance except sanitation.

Though, the bottom districts scored high marks on some of the indicators from a low of six and a high of 99 per cent, they largely performed woefully apart from sanitation.

Mr Mohammed explained that the score showed the important difference in the development levels of the assemblies due to differences in poverty levels, inequities in resource allocations and mobilization among others.

Citing an example to buttress his observation, he said the Gomoa West District which was ranked 20th in the Region had low percentage scores for indicators such as rural water, 37.1 and zero per cent for communities certified as open defecation free (ODD).

Nonetheless, the Upper Denkyira East Municipality that had good scores in sectors such as police to population coverage, Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) pass rate, skilled delivery and FOAT performance of 93 per cent performed abysmally on sanitation.

Mr Mohammed indicated that notwithstanding the incredible performance by Upper Denkyira East Municipal in all the indicators, no community in the area has been certified as open ODF.

He particularly lauded the efforts of Ekumfi, Assin South and Agona West districts for the hard work and impressive improvement on achieving the requirements of the indicators since 2016, and called on all assemblies to adopt innovative measures to tackle the challenges and effectively improve on their performances.

He stressed the need for districts, ministries, departments, agencies and development partners to investigate further the low performing indicators and districts.