Resource constraints in the form of finance and logistics were said to be the major challenge to the achievement of the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) policy, panelists in Cape Coast have said.

They said almost all stakeholders who were to ensure that the ECCD policy saw the day of light had neither budgetary allocation nor basic logistics such as vehicles to carry out their operations.

This revelation came up at the consultative meeting on November 25 on the implementation of the ECCD policy in Cape Coast.

The policy being coordinated by the Department of Children, under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, was put forward in 2004 to provide a range of services that would promote the survival, growth, development and protection of the young child.

But 10 years down the line, stakeholders claim the ECCD policy had not seen its full implementation due to lack of resources and the local assemblies’ disinterest in child issues.

According to Mr. Israel Akrobortu, a Senior Programmes Officer of the National ECCD Policy Committee, Section 16 of the Children’s Act mandated the local assemblies to protect the rights of children and also liaise with governmental agencies like the Departments of Social Welfare and Children to promote children’s issues.

Unfortunately, Mr. Akrobortu said, the Assemblies had failed because chief executives in the assemblies were interested in infrastructural development which would earn them political points rather than creating a ‘child panel’.

He urged the Regional Co-ordinating Council, a major stakeholder in the ECCD policy implementation, to coordinate with assemblies in the region to factor the ‘child panel’ in their budget in order to realize the objectives and targets of the policy.

Madam Pearl Akpene Sah, a Programmes Officer of the National Committee, said though resource constraints were inimical to the policy implementation, immense strategies had been achieved by way of advocacy, capacity building, coordination and collaboration with key stakeholders and beneficiaries.

She said the National Secretariat of the ECCD Policy had been dissolved because the timelines set for the policy implementation had outlived their targets, it was yet to be reconstituted.

Madam Sah called on the Regional Committee to be guided by the goals, objectives and targets to help achieve the policy implementation.

On the achievements of the Regional Committee so far, Dr. Samuel Kwashie, the Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, said the Central Region had seen a great reduction in high infant and under-five mortality rates for some time now, adding that “no child has died from Polio and Measles infection since 2003, which he said used to be a number one child killer.”

Again, maternal mortality has reduced in the last decade, with the 2013 figure standing at 109 per 100,000 live births, a record he said was a massive improvement on previous years.

Among some of the suggestions made by the panelists were that the National Secretariat should appeal to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Integration for resource to enable the smooth implementation of the policy.

The government should consider taking up the education of primary pupils in private schools to help alleviate the suffering of parents.