The SADA Mandate and health sector coordination, planning and M&E.
Presentation at the SADA Zone High Level Health Forum, Tamale
Charles Abugre, CEO, SADA
08/04/2015
Mr Chairman, Hon Ministers, Hon members of parliament, development partners, ladies and
gentlemen. I will like to join the Chairman of SADA’s Board of Directors, Mr Adam Sulley,
and the Hon Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru-Limuna in welcoming
you to Tamale and to this first SADA zone health forum. We hope that this event will be a
building block for an enduring partnership to improve health and keep our people healthy in
this zone.
This gathering is a joint initiative of SADA and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) which has
received impressive support from the Ministry of Health, the Ministers from our zone and our
development partners. This meeting is a recognition that we cannot develop and transform
the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone
without a healthy people and a healthy
environment.
I was asked to share with you SADA’s mandate especially as it relates to planning and
coordination. We are often asked where our role fits into the decentralised planning and
coordination mechanism represented by the MMDA, the RCCs and NDPC. I shall attempt to
explain this. I shall also attempt to share with you how we plan to implement our mandate in
these areas and how we might partner in doing these.
The Constitutional and Legislative Foundations of SADA
The Northern Savannah Ecological Zone (the SADA Zone) occupies over 50 per cent of
Ghana’s land area and nearly 30% of its population. The area shares two characteristics – a
dryland Savannah ecology ( part of the wider Guinea Savannah Region that stretches
northwards to Mali, Niger and north-eastwards to northern Nigeria); and, a long history of
relative under-investment in economic and social infrastructure. The two, put together,
account for the relative under-development of the Zone which reflects also in poor health
outcomes.
SADA was established by Act 805, 2010 as an independent and autonomous statutory
corporation with an extensive mandate to address the problem of relative underdevelopment
by providing “a framework for the comprehensive and long-term development of the
Northern Savannah Ecological Zone”.
SADA has its constitutional foundations in Article 36 (2) (d) of the Fourth Republican
Constitution, which states that “the state is enjoined in the directive principles of state policy
to take the necessary steps to establish a sound and healthy economy through the
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undertaking of even and balanced development of all regions and improvement of conditions
of life in the rural areas”.
This is the context in which SADA’s purpose is often framed as bringing about a bridging of
the development gap between the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone and the rest of the
country to the South.
The Purpose of SADA
Act 805 2010 (Article 2) specifies SADA’s strategic objectives as follows:.
1. To provide strategic planning guidance to government as regards the implementation
and review of an accelerated development strategy for the Northern Savannah
Ecological Zone;
2. To mobilise human, financial and other resources for the implementation of the
accelerated development strategy;
3. To co-ordinate existing and future development and related policies affecting the
Northern Savannah Ecological Zone with a view to ensuring coherence in policyrnaking and implementation.
SADA’s Planning and Coordination mandate
Strategic planning and coordination are therefore integral to the purpose of creating SADA.
SADA’s planning and coordination mandate is also situated in Articles 12 and 13 of the
National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) Act 480, 1994 – the Act that
established the National Development System.
Article 12 brings about the Joint Development Planning Area (JDPA) – “a contiguous area
with special physical and socio-economic characteristics necessitating it being considered a
single unit for the purpose of development planning”. The President may, by executive
Instrument so designate such a JDPA. SADA is the first and only JDPA established since
Act 480, 1994 came into force.
Article 13 establishes a Joint Development Planning Board (JDPB) for the “purposes of
formulating and supervising the implementation of development plans in the designated
area” and “determine the economic, spatial and sectoral policies of the designated area,
including the mobilization of human, physical and financial resources for development”.
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The composition of the Board, is much similar to that of the Stakeholder Coordinating
Committee (SCC) of SADA. In a recent meeting of the National Development Planning
Commission (NDPC) of which the SADA CEO is a Commissioner, clarification was given to
the effect that the SADA SCC satisfies the conditions of the JDPB but needed to include the
Regional Representatives of the NDPC.
Article 13(4) of Act 480, 1994 requires development plans prepared by the JDPB to be
submitted to the National Development Planning Commission with copies to affected district
planning authorities and respective Regional Coordinating Councils. Upon approval, the
plans of the District Assemblies will be required to be modified accordingly.
The planning, coordination and resource mobilisations functions of SADA are therefore fully
consistent with the decentralised planning system of Ghana and represents an additional
and complimentary layer created to solve a particular problem – the lagging behind in terms
of development of nearly 30 per cent of the Ghanaian people, occupying over 50 per cent
of Ghana’s land area with a shared ecology and a shared history of relative neglect.
Implementing our strategic planning function
A 20-year strategic plan was developed in 2010 to launch SADA (see www.sadagh.org). A
five-year Business Plan was also developed to roll-out the strategy. The latter comes to an
end on the 31st of December 2015. The chapter on health focussed overwhelmingly on
incentives and approaches to the training and retention of health personnel in the zone. We
plan to initiate a process of developing the next five-year implementation plan, and in that
context review the current long-term plan. We will share a concept note shortly which will
also aim to provide a road map for sectoral and cross-sectional consultations and planning.
We will need the support of this group to lead the health sector visioning and planning. The
more joined up the planning, the more joined up the M&E will be.
In aid of this and in recognition of the decentralised nature of our planning system, we plan
to convene a meeting shortly with the District Chief Executives from all the 63 MMDAs of the
SADA zone to launch the process together but also to map their own planning support
needs.
We have also initiated the process of developing a framework for spatial planning with the
Town and Country Planning Department. This will feed into a master planning exercise
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which we plan to kick-off at the bringing of May with a two-day retreat of experts drawn from
across sectors, including some from outside the country.
Implementing our Coordination Mandate
Before the end of this year we hope to have office presence in all the five Regional
Coordination Councils. These will be small teams of 2-3 people. Their focus will be to
support the coordinating roles of the RCCs by building and maintaining information platforms
for learning and for M&E, assisting to convene sectorally and across sectors and being
closer to MMDAs.
In support of the information provisioning role, SADA has invested significantly in the digital
mapping of the social and economic infrastructure across the SADA zone, with the support
of development partners, especially UNDP. We plan to convene a meeting, together with
USAID and other organisations that have been mapping infrastructure and resources in the
SADA Zone in order to harmonise these maps but also make them usable for planning
purposes and for public use. We plan in particular to build the M&E system on the back of
these digital maps. Collaboration with the health sector authorities can pioneer this effort.
We see the following possibilities with regards to our coordination role in the health sector:
1. Work closely with the GHS and NDPC to build the information system to support an
M$E system to track the alignment between plans and budgets and progress in
health sector outcomes.
2. Support the rolling out of LEAP and other initiatives by development partners that
impact on the nutrition situation in the SADA zone.
3. Support specific pieces of research as needed, or provide a platform for the
dissemination of research results that have the potential to impact positively on
health outcomes in the SADA zone. We look forward to collaborating with UDS and
other health research institutions to do this.
4. Be an advocacy voice within government for scaling up public investments to bridge
the health sector gaps in the SADA zone.
5. Recognise the role that civil society and faith based organisations play in bringing
citizen voices to bear in public service delivery and the challenge of serving the
poorest people.
6. Ensure that health sector investments in our zone align to needs and are harmonized
as much as possible.
Regarding out mandate to mobilise resources and facilitate investments into the SADA zone,
we are looking at the following:
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1. Catalyse public private partnerships (PPPs) in the health sector for both public health
delivery as well as high-end, specialized commercial health services – what is often
unsatisfactorily referred to as health tourism – to cater for a rising middle class in
Ghana and the West Africa sub-region
2. To catalyse public-private partnerships in efforts to control malaria including the
production of biolavicide.
3. Catalyse philanthropic contribution to the health sector including the supply of
medical facilities, drugs and equipment
4. Seek an expansion of the Millennium Villages Project model to other areas whilst
ensuring a stronger alignment with MoH policies and strategies.
5. Better support to the civil society sector, especially in the use of advocacy,
information and communications strategy for the mobilization of citizens for the
delivery of health services to hard-to-reach areas, the poor and the reproductive
health sector in particular.
6. Catalyse investments in infrastructure(from public and private sources) that support
the health sector, including health sector facilities as well as the adaptation of
tricycles assembled in the SADA zone to the need for ambulance services.
Mr Chairman,
These remarks are merely to demonstrate that with the appropriate capacity, collaboration
and partnership, SADA can be a helpful instrument for our common desire to improve health
outcomes in this part of the country. We look forward to learning more about the state of our
health sector in our zone and what we can do collaboratively to improve the situation.
Let me take this opportunity to thank sincerely the people who worked hard to prepare this
event, including Dr Erasmus Agongo,( GHS) Dr. Victor Ngongalah (UNICEF) Dr Magda
Robalo , WHO, Ms Dennia Gayle and Ms Adjoa Yenyi (UNFPA), Dr Awudu Tinorgah , Ms
Melanie Luick-Martins (USAID) , Dr Frank Nyonator (Ghana Evaluate for Health) and my
own team , Mr Wilbert Tengey (Board member) and Mr Chrys Anab, the head of our social
development work.
I will also like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors – WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, WFP,
and USAID for making this happen.
I hope you enjoy Tamale too.
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