Ghana’s Strengthening Accountability Mechanism (GSAM) project is a five (5) year USAID funded project which focuses on strengthening citizens’ oversight of capital development projects to improve local government transparency, accountability and performance in 100 districts of Ghana. GSAM is designed to strengthen social accountability by improving information to CSOs and the citizenry in the project districts to enhance their capacity to demand accountability. The project seeks to improve accountability by enhancing mechanisms of bottom-up social accountability in MMDAs through increasing the quality and quantity of information available to citizens about the effectiveness of capital projects through extensive CSO monitoring, the production of scorecards, and public information campaigns.
Prior to the rollout of the intervention, the GSAM team collected baseline data in 26 district assemblies in 8 regions of Ghana. The purpose of the baseline study was to establish the situation prior to the roll up of project interventions, document the first measurement of indicators to be used to determine progress, and which will serve as benchmarks for setting targets to be achieved at the completion of the project intervention.