The meeting centred on poverty and social protection, Child protection and welfare, Health and nutrition, Basic Education and Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).

Women’s group, traditional authority, students, youth groups, social media activists, assembly members, and persons with disability were among the many groups that attended the meeting.

It was jointly organized by Send-Ghana and the Social Policy Unit of UNICEF Ghana.

Mr Bashiru Jumah, the Upper West Programme Officer of SEND-Ghana, said contributions of citizens into the 2019 budget preparation process was key for inclusive development, hence, the need to engage them on key priority areas of the economy.

“Citizens’ views and concerns will be consolidated and submitted to the sector ministries for consideration,” he stated.He noted that participation of citizens in budget formulation and implementation had improved considerably since 2015 as SEND-Ghana created series of platforms for them to participate in forums to make inputs into both national budget and Districts Medium Term Plans.

Mr Jumah said SEND-Ghana’s mandate and outmost priority was to track government’s budget and to ensure that issues raised by stakeholders found space in the budget implementation process to benefit the citizenry.

Participation of citizens in the budget preparation is expected to promote equitable, transparent, accountable and participatory budget to improve efficiency in the planning process.

The participants went into five working groups to identify, discuss, justify and agree on issues in their respective sectors for consideration.They also shared their experiences and identified gaps and challenges in the implementation of interventions in areas of health and nutrition, basic education, poverty, social protection, child protection and welfare, and water sanitation and hygiene.