Ghana: Evaluation of the bank assistance to the education sector, 1985-2004

Evaluation Team

This report was prepared by Albert-Enéas Gakusi, Principal Post-Evaluation Officer, Operations Evaluation Department (OPEV) and by Mr. Thomas O’Brien Kirk, an external consultant, following their mission to Ghana in March 2005.

Objective

The objectives of the Education Sector Evaluation are to; a) assess the relevance of funded activities through projects over the period 1985-2004; b) assess the effectiveness of Bank support to the Ghanaian education sector in improving education system delivery, access to educational services, promoting changes in education sector policies and institutional reforms, and c) identify lessons from experience over the period in order to strengthen future Bank policies and procedures and improve quality of Bank operations

Main Lessons

• The lack of national Bank representation constitutes a missed opportunity to take advantage of policy dialogue, and to learn from ongoing institutional arrangements aimed at improving development assistance.
   
• A participatory approach involving all relevant stakeholders, including NGOs, in project design and implementation does improve efficiency and sustainability of interventions. Despite the fact that the Bank’s development policies insist on dialogue as well as the beneficiaries’ participation in its interventions in Regional Member Countries, the realisation of projects pay lip service to participation. Accordingly, participation is not effective. 

•  Delays associated with payments and financial services to entrepreneurs can create disaffection and uncertainty about government commitment which can adversely affect the delivery of the contract.

 

Main Recommendations

Recommendation(s) to the Beneficiary:

• As a step towards the needed Civil Service Reform, the Government of Ghana should improve measures to provide staff with accommodation as well as other incentives, particularly for personnel in educational infrastructures, especially in under-privileged areas.

• The Government should ensure that Project Managers effectively manage, implement and report on projects in order to attain the desired objectives.

• The Government should expedite actions on public sector reforms in order to bring to the fore alternative employment opportunities in the private sector by training, as well as promoting access to credit for the persons who are willing to set up and develop their own enterprises, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises. In particular, the Government should relieve the procedures for starting up business. This effort should be linked to the ongoing strengthening of education.

• The Government of Ghana should ensure the implementation of the New Audit Service Act to present to Development Partners a solid framework for use of funding within the new international assistance instruments settings: SWAp and budget support.

Recommendation(s) to the Bank:

• The participatory process in designing, appraising, implementing and assessing project activities should be effective, and should involve all relevant stakeholders at each stage of the project cycle.

• In Ghana, the process of implementing new intervention instruments is well established, with effective donor coordination under the Government’s leadership. The Bank should enter the Basket Fund arrangements in a manner suitable to Bank procedures. This could be totally or partially via earmarked funds, which would allow tracing of fund utilization.

• The Bank should do more to increase the institutional capacity of the collaborating ministries and implementing agencies, including monitoring and evaluation of the sector ministry, both in terms of education policy and strategy development and support to decentralization and training, at all relevant levels of the education sector. To this end, the Bank could rely on pertinent social studies in the areas of its interventions.

• To reduce delays in communication and improve the impact of interventions, the Bank should reduce the workload of the task managers, and increase the quality of its appraisal procedures as well as the training of the personnel of implementing agencies.