Validation workshop held for community development plans

The Wa Satellite Peace Centre (SPC) has held a day’s validation workshop on a ten-year Strategic Development Plan for selected communities within the Wa Diocese of the Catholic Church as part of efforts to help promote the development of those community.

The communities included the Nimoro and Fielemon in the Sissala West District, and the Kaani in the Lambussie District.

The Wa SPC influenced the communities to develop strategic plans to guide and target the developmental interventions in those communities.

Speaking at the workshop at Loho in the Nadowli-Kaleo District, Reverend Dr Aloysius Nuolabong, the Coordinator of the Wa SPC, said the decision of the Centre to facilitate the development of the plans followed the development gaps identified in those communities, which were breeding grounds for conflicts.

Participants from the Kaani and Fielemon communities included traditional leaders, representatives of women groups, Assembly Members, and Persons with Disabilities, among others.

Rev. Dr. Nuolabong explained that the Wa SPC had held series of engagements with the Nimoro, Fielemon, and Kaani communities since 2016 to help mediate some conflicts and to promote peaceful co-existence.

He said the engagement revealed that the lack of development of the communities resulted in the conflicts, which informed the need for the development of the ten-year strategic plans for targeted development interventions from politicians, development partners, and community initiatives.

“In 2016, we went to Kaani and Fielemon and intervened in their conflicts. The Fielemon one was between the natives and the settlers about land issues. Kaani was about the district, so, they said they will not vote.

“The Wa Satellite Peace Centre went and intervened through series of workshops, and some took part in the voting, but others did not, and in Fielemon they took part in the voting.

“In these two communities, they lacked development. So, we engaged them in 2020 to talk about the development needs of the villages and what are their strengths”, Rev. Dr. Nuolabong explained.

He said the development plans, when finalised, would serve as references for any person, group of persons, or organisations seeking to support the development of the communities including politicians and Non-governmental Organisations to ensure their interventions met the needs of the communities.

The Wa SPC Coordinator explained that the development plans of the communities primarily centred on education, health, water and sanitation, youth and women empowerment, and agriculture, among others.

Some of the participants at the meeting, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), expressed happiness about the development plans and said they would help the communities to target their development requests to politicians.
Naa Edward Folo, the Chief of Kaani, said education, especially for girls, had been a major challenge to the community, which had been captured in their community development plan.

He also identified disunity as another impediment to the community’s rapid development as a section of that community belonged to Lambussie District while the other section belonged to the Jirapa Municipality.