The British High Commission comes to Bole

“Because Ghana has a good government, we give the money to the government so they can spend it on their priorities”, says Nicolas Wescott, representative of the British High Commission. He’s addressing the BoleWura (Bole Chief) and other significant players in Bole and discussing the approximate 60 million pounds given to the Ghana government each year.

I like his statement for two reasons.
1. I appreciate the efforts to let the Ghanaian government decide what the priorities are for the use of the money. The government, through its decentralized arms, is also in a better position to deliver the services to the various communities – rather than a bunch of pale British representatives in Land Cruisers.

2. His statement makes me feel like my work is important. I feel that saying “Ghana has a good government” is only partially true. Ghana has a lot to be proud of, including a peaceful democracy and relatively low levels of corruption in their government. But their local governments are still not functioning as designed. The local governments should be the agencies using the British funds to deliver services to the communities, but they need to start performing first. EWB is trying to help them do that. It’s slow, but so is development. And if we can make small steps to improving how the local governments operate, it means that the local governments can use the British funding more effectively, and more people can benefit from the aid as intended.