Local Governance
Review of DPAT Indicators — Volta and Oti Regions
- Client
- Ministry of Local Government & Rural Development
- Year
- 2020
- Location
- Volta & Oti Regions
- Client type
- Government
- Region(s)
- Volta · Oti
The assignment
Following Ghana's 2019 regional reorganisation — which created the new Oti Region from parts of the Volta Region — the Ministry of Local Government & Rural Development commissioned Devtplan Consult to review and validate the District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT) indicators for both regions. The DPAT is the primary mechanism through which the national government assesses composite MMDA performance; the review was critical to ensuring that districts in the two regions were assessed against indicators that reflected their actual service-delivery context and institutional capacity.
Our approach
Devtplan conducted a desk review of the existing DPAT indicator set alongside the constitutional, administrative, and service-delivery profiles of districts in both regions. Field visits to a representative sample of districts — including the newly constituted Oti districts — allowed the team to test indicator relevance, data availability, and the feasibility of data collection by district staff. Qualitative interviews with district planning and finance officers, sector heads, and NDPC regional counterparts surfaced the practical barriers to indicator measurement. A technical validation workshop brought together MMDA officers from both regions to review proposed amendments to the indicator set.
The outcome
The review produced a revised set of DPAT indicators calibrated to the administrative realities of Volta and Oti regions, with accompanying guidance on data sources, collection methods, and scoring. The work directly informed the MLGRD's 2020 DPAT assessment cycle and the capacity-building programme for district planning officers in the two regions. Devtplan's documentation of indicator-level data challenges also contributed to a broader national conversation about strengthening the evidence base for district performance management.
Key figures
regions covered (Volta & Oti)
districts reviewed
revised DPAT indicator set produced
Figures shown are illustrative for this demo.