Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), Dr Esther Oduraa Ofei-Aboagye, has called for national commitment in strengthening the capacity of local government structures to make them more efficient, effective and accountable. She said since local governance involved joint management of public concerns through partnership by various stakeholders including the private, public, non-governmental and civil society sectors, it was critical to enhance their capacity to ensure a more coherent, integrated, responsive and sustainable development at the local level. Dr Ofei-Aboagye, who was addressing participants at a symposium at the on-going 61st Annual New Year School in Accra on Tuesday, said capacity building would develop the appropriate organizational structures and put in relevant procedures for the envisaged standards within local governance. The programme was under a sub-topic "Strengthening Local Governance for Development." She noted that in order to be responsive, Ghanaian local governments must have the capacity to plan and coordinate programmes, identify the appropriate beneficiaries, ensure that their needs were effectively achieved and managed the interfaces between them and the other stakeholders. Dr Ofei-Aboagye noted that the local authorities needed to be able to respond appropriately and be pro-active in ensuring the well-being of their citizens, taking into account various changing contexts and adopting them efficiently and effectively. She pointed out that the dilemma involved in capacity building for decentralization and local governance had been whether the transfer of power should precede capacity building or the other way round,. He argued for the necessity to establish strong human, financial, technological and other resources before assemblies were created. According to Dr Ofei-Aboagye, capacity building should be linked to targets, aspirations, realities and prospects so that beneficiaries would be able to evaluate what was offered to them by suppliers and strategically select their needs. She added that this would also ensure that the right levels of resources to match the assignments and establish effective working and reporting relationships, recognizing the interdependence of the entities in the local government system. Source: GNA