Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi urges ethics-focused capacity building in Ghana’s local government training

Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, a renowned local governance expert, has stressed that ethics and ethical conduct must form the foundation of all capacity-building initiatives within Ghana’s local government system.

Speaking at the 2nd Biennial Professor Samuel Nunoo Woode Memorial Lecture in Accra, he said local governance represented the frontline of Ghana’s governance architecture, being the structure closest to the people, and practitioners must therefore present themselves as ethical role models.

The lecture, held on the theme “Building capacity for professionalism and ethical conduct in Ghana’s local governance system,” was organised by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) in collaboration with the family of the late Prof. S. N. Woode. The biennial lecture was instituted to preserve the legacy of ILGS’s founding director, following the maiden event in July 2023, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of the ILGS Act, 2003 (Act 647).

Prof. Ahwoi highlighted the need to introduce “training of trainers” programmes, arguing that the ILGS alone could not provide all requisite training at a central location. “More trainers, the better training,” he said, calling for decentralised or regionalised approaches. He cited Ghana’s past UNDP-supported Regional Mobile Planning Teams as a model that could be replicated through new “Regional Mobile Capacity-Building Teams” to advance professionalism and ethicality.

He insisted that ethics must not be treated as an optional add-on but embedded as a mandatory component in all training programmes. According to him, capacity building for ethical conduct should extend across the entire local governance spectrum. He further recommended that monitoring and evaluation of staff performance should include compliance with professional and ethical standards as a key performance indicator.

To sustain this, Prof. Ahwoi called for a specific Code of Conduct and Ethics for local government practitioners, stressing that organisations such as the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG) must be drawn into the campaign for professionalism. “Ethics in governance straddle honesty, humility, integrity, and decency,” he said, adding that true ethical principles required prioritising the interests of citizens, particularly those at the middle and lower levels of organisations, above personal gain.

Despite challenges, he commended the ILGS for fulfilling its mandate by arranging training courses, workshops, seminars, and conferences for local government actors. He noted that the Institute had also delivered on promoting research, setting training eligibility criteria, and developing training materials for Regional Coordinating Councils, District Assemblies, and other governance units