Decentralisation and Poverty Alleviation in Rural Ghana: Perspectives from District Elites and Voices of the Rural Poor

Decentralisation of government has been a major policy direction of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) as an adjunct to the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) imposed on low income countries. The emphasis in SAPs on the reduction of public spending has increased poverty in many cases. This has led to the growth of a new emphasis on decentralisation and participatory development in an attempt to reduce poverty .The link between participation and local governance has become seen as an important means of improving the effectiveness of services and of empowering the poor to participate in the development processes that affect their lives. Based on empirical study of a district in Ghana, this paper argues that there are perception gaps between the elites and rural poor with respect to poverty and poverty alleviation strategies. It also suggests that the poor are rendered anonymous in the design of poverty alleviation programmes. The paper also notes that the voices of the poor in the study district are unanimous in one respect: poverty alleviation programmes under the District Assemblies (DAs) have hardly affected them.