The European Union (EU), has under its Micro Projects Programme implemented 231 projects in 19 districts in the Eastern Region, to improve the standards of living of people in the beneficiary communities.
The programme, which formed part of 904 projects being executed in six out of the 10 regions in Ghana, included 72 three-unit classroom blocks, 11 day care centres, 22 teachers' quarters, 22 rural clinics/clips compounds, eight nurses' quarters, 41 vault chambers, public toilets, 31 culverts, 17 ware houses and two bore holes.
Mr Kwabena Dankyi Darfoor, Programme Manager of the Sixth Micro Project Programme Technical Assistance, announced these when he inaugurated a three-classroom block, office and a store for the Islamic Junior High School in the Kwahu South District and a day care centre for the Pepease community in the Kwahu East District.
He said the Programme supported people in 56 communities in the 19 districts in the region with a total amount of GHC 224,913 to enable them to undertake economic activities to generate more income towards poverty reduction.
Mr Darfoor said that the initiative was a community-based rural activity aimed at assisting rural communities to have access to basic school buildings and sanitation and other amenities to improve the living standard of the rural people.
He said that under the Programme, beneficiary communities decided their own projects, provided communal labour, sand and stones while the EU made available money with counterpart funding from the government.
Mr Darfoor said since the implementation of the Programme in 2006-2007, the EU had spent 25 million Euros on the 904 projects through out the country.
The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, in an address read on his behalf, commended the EU for providing financial, technical and logistic support to facilitate the decentralization process in the various district assemblies.
He said that the Programme's objectives of increasing access to socio-economic activities, promoting local community empowerment and initiating a process of local participation promoted a model of participatory development between local authorities and the communities.
Mr Ampofo said the Programme was directly in line with government's socio-economic development and poverty reduction agenda with increasing access and utilization of good quality basic social and economic infrastructure and services to deprived communities.
Mr Samuel Asamoah, Kwahu East District Chief Executive, commended the Programme for organizing training for management staff of the assembly in store keeping, accounting, planning and management and construction to increase productivity in addition to the physical projects.