A Monitoring and Evaluation Document published by the Social Enterprise Development Foundation (SEND), an NGO has indicated that the HIPC initiative has improved essential services in most districts that benefited from the projects.

This was said at the launch of a report on the Assessment of the Short Term Impact of HIPC in Ghana. The report said school management and enrolment has improved tremendously in HIPC funded schools across the country.

According to the report most of the projects monitored revealed that accessibility and effective utilization were a challenge, and the reason for this was poor stakeholder involvement in the selection and implementation of projects.

The report assessed the short-term impact of HIPC funded projects in the 42 resource-poor districts in the country in Education, Health and water and sanitation covering 2002 - 2005.

A total of 836 projects were monitored out of which, about 89.2% are available and in use, while 10.8% have been abandoned.

The report further indicates that there was no equitable distribution of projects in relation to people with disability. It said with the exception of the Yendi and Savelugu Nanton districts, the special needs of people with disabilities were not incorporated into the design of physical projects.

It further said specialized establishments such as special schools for the blind etc were not supported under the initiative.

Of the three sectors monitored, the health sector was said to have benefited least in terms of project distribution, but ranked highest in terms of abandoned projects. "Taking southern Ghana as an isolated case, approximately 34.2% of health projects has been abandoned".

The report however, indicated that enrolment improved in HIPC funded schools, which benefited classroom facilities, but unlike the observation in northern Ghana, which was consistent with national trend, a decline in enrolment was observed in southern Ghana.

"Poverty and ignorance about the importance of education were noted to underline the problem of low enrolment. Accessibility to classroom projects in northern Ghana was enhanced due to the sensitization and support activities provided by some NGOs which resulted in increased enrolment in the northern zone,"

The Chief Executive Officer of SEND Foundation , Mr. Siapha Kamara said infrastructure alone is not enough to address enrolment in schools but complementary factors like quality teachers and other teaching and learning aids.

He noted that in terms of project implementation, the northern sector did better as compared to the south and mentioned the Kete-krachi district in the Volta Region as having experienced a lot of shoddy work by contractors who undertook HIPC projects.

The Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies Dr. Esther Ofei-Aboagye who chaired the function said monitoring and evaluation of programmes and projects "must not be seen as punitive", but as a way of reminding managers of the need to do better.

She said such reports also go a long way to sensitize the public on the need to demand efficiency and accountability from those to whose hands the nations resources are entrusted.