LESSON
Lesson Learned: Promoting Citizen’s Participation in the Constitutional Reform Process in Ghana
Constitutional review processes are frequently subject to unexpected changes in the government’s schedule of priorities or politically motivated delays. These are recurring challenges that many UNDEF-funded projects have faced. This project in Ghana took a very cautious approach and identified external risks and therefore formulated more modest expected outputs and results.
Project Partner
Institute of Economic Affairs
Project Description
The project facilitated the participation of marginalized and vulnerable groups of citizens in the constitutional reform process in Ghana. This process was initiated by the Ghanaian government when it established a Constitution Review Commission (CRC). The project aimed to consult the country’s marginalized populations on key constitutional issues and considered their recommendations in conjunction with the results of field surveys and thematic research papers.
The project organized workshops with participants. On average 21 new relevant recommendations were made by each participant. This improved the quality of submissions - compared to the officially conducted CRC consultations – and prompted various Members of Parliament (MPs) to declare their support. Over 80% of the Constitution Review Commissions’ recommendations were informed by the project’s input, which demonstrates the impact the project had.
Report
Evaluation Date
January 2013
Theme
Country