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Abstract
Participatory GIS development for natural resource mangement and rural develoment at the local government level
Dr. Opoku Pabi
RSAL, Geography and Resource Devt,
Ghana
Email: opabi@yahoo.com
In the devolution of management responsibilities to local governments under the decentralization regime in Ghana, parallel arrangement was not made to equip local government institutions to generate and use data/information for management policy decisions. Largely, most of their policy decisions are not evidence-based. This renders most of their policy actions ineffective in addressing real problems. The purpose of the project was to develop a community participatory process for developing geographic information system for improved natural resource and rural livelihood management decisions. This was achieved by establishing a multi-sectoral geo-information infrastructure through improved community and institutional appreciation for information use in policy decision-making processes and building local capacity to generate data/information for decision making process. In spite of the institutional, political, technological, social, cultural, infrastructural and other challenges, there were worthwhile achievements. A participatory strategy for developing a decentralised information system at the local government level has been initiated for further improvement. Local capacity for generating data and information has been built for the updating of the database and up-scaling processes. To some extent, data availability and the sensitivity of the importance of institutionalising data/information in management decision process have been improved. These lessons and observations are important for improving and fine-tuning the process.
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