The Centre for Democratic Development Ghana (CDD-Ghana), with mobilisation and coordination support from the Rural Initiative for Self-Empowerment Ghana (RISE-Ghana), has trained stakeholders in Bongo, Garu, and Bawku West Districts to champion development. The community stakeholders, including Assembly members, district information officers, youth group leaders, and political party representatives, among others, were equipped with social accountability tools and techniques and how to use them to harness development in their respective communities. They also had hands-on trials on the application of social accountability tools and techniques, among other group work presentations and discussions to improve their understanding of social accountability actions. Mr Ahmed Awal Karisma, the Executive Director of RISE-Ghana, indicated that it was important for citizens to work together to ensure the government of the day met its community needs and managed their resources effectively and transparently That, he noted, could only be possible if citizens were equipped to make systematic analysis and intelligent use of data in getting critical information about budget, expenditure, corruption, and performances, among others, that would enable them to generate sound evidence to determine either poor or good governance and take appropriate actions. The project, funded by the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is being implemented in eight districts across three regions, namely the Upper East, North East, and Upper West. It aimed at enhancing social cohesion and mobilising community members to prevent violent extremism and participate in local governance and decision-making processes of local development of their communities. 'So, the purpose of this training is to train these community stakeholders and identifiable groups so that they can understand and practice social accountability to harness development in their a reas,' he added. He explained that the idea was also to strengthen their agencies and reduce the vulnerability of communities to conflict and spillover of activities of violent extremists by enhancing their capacity to develop mechanisms and plans to implement social accountability as a core group of people that could champion actions in their communities. At the end of the workshop, the stakeholders formulated their action plans by identifying community social development and governance issues in their communities to apply social accountability tools. They also identified topics for social media advocacy and radio campaigns from emerging issues in the governance and community development issues in their respective districts. Source: Ghana News Agency