THE PLANNING PARADOX: HOW GHANA’S ADMINISTRATIVE SPLITS ARE UNDERMINING DEVELOPMENT

Ghana’s administrative fragmentation represents a classic case of political expedience undermining technical rationality. Whilst the desire to bring governance closer to the people is laudable, the current approach has created a planning system that is increasingly unable to deliver on its development promises. Debatable? Let’s read.

Ghana’s decision in 2018 to expand from ten to sixteen regions and increase its Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) from 110 in 1988 to 261 presently has been celebrated as a milestone in democratic decentralisation. The goal was to bring governance closer to the people and promote balanced development. However, this rapid administrative proliferation has exposed a planning paradox – one where efforts to enhance local governance have instead fragmented planning systems, weakened coordination, and destabilised the very institutions meant to deliver sustainable development.

The proliferation of administrative units has largely been driven by political expediency rather than technical necessity. Successive governments have treated the creation of new districts and regions as electoral strategies to secure votes and reward local loyalty (Iddrisu & Thill, 2024). The 2018 referendum, which birthed six new regions, reflected this tendency, promising local empowerment but often functioning as a vehicle for consolidating partisan support (Van Gyampo, 2018).

Article 241(2) of Ghana’s Constitution and Sections 2-4 of the Local Governance Act 936 grants the Parliament and President broad discretion over boundary creation, allowing politically timed announcements that coincide with the four years election cycles. This power has been repeatedly exploited, with notable cases such as the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly facing recurring disaggregation pressures (AMA, 2017; Penu, 2023). Fiscal manipulation further reinforces this pattern; the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) allocations often increase in election years, motivating communities to seek separate administrative status to access direct funding (Fumey, 2018).

The splitting of regions and the rapid expansion of MMDAs have weakened regional-scale planning and undermined metropolitan coordination. The division of regions has separated districts that previously functioned as integrated planning units, disrupting data continuity and creating gaps that are yet to be reconciled. Without reliable and harmonised data, regional planning faces significant challenges in making accurate forecasts and projections, a situation that equally affects district assemblies. Also, in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, overlapping jurisdictions have made large-scale infrastructure projects, particularly in waste and stormwater management, difficult to execute effectively. The Greater Accra Resilient Integrated Development (GARID) Project attempts to promote inter-metropolitan collaboration, offering valuable lessons on both opportunities and challenges. While it demonstrates the potential for collaborative planning, it also reveals institutional rivalries, resource disparities, and the absence of legal frameworks (Legislative Instrument/ regulatory frameworks) to enforce sustained coordination (World Bank, 2021).

Administrative disaggregation has further distorted the relationship between development plans and spatial frameworks. Development interventions often fail to conform to approved spatial plans or Structure Development Frameworks (SDFs), as boundary changes cut out towns and neighbourhoods from their original planning jurisdictions. Consequently, many SDFs and local plans have lost practical relevance, leading to uncoordinated development patterns that defy intended spatial strategies (Acheampong, 2019), evident in the fragmented urban spaces evolving without spatial logic or regulatory continuity.

Most newly created regions and districts frequently begin operations with weak institutional setups, limited technical capacity, and inadequate funding (Mensah et al., 2015). Simultaneously, boundary redefinitions disrupt historical data series, making trend analysis and forecasting challenging. Modelling planning interventions to address urban problems is almost impossible as modelling is data dependent, a deficiency in Ghana’s planning compounded by fragmentation. The Ghana Statistical Service’s datasets which are often relied on sometimes fail to align with shifting administrative boundaries, resulting in data inconsistencies that obstruct evidence-based planning and decision-making (Afful et al., 2025).

The path forward requires acknowledging that effective planning depends on institutional stability, technical capacity, and data continuity, all of which are threatened by ongoing administrative fragmentation. Ghana must choose between continuing to fragment its administrative landscape to satisfy short-term political demands or building the stable institutional foundations needed for long-term sustainable development. The stakes could not be higher. As Ghana aspires to a higher middle-income status and grapples with rapid urbanisation, climate change, and growing inequality, effective spatial and development planning becomes ever more critical. The country cannot afford to continue sacrificing planning effectiveness on the altar of political expediency.

Success will require political courage to resist the urge for administrative proliferation. It is important to ensure that newly created Districts, and those elevated to Municipal and Metropolitan status, meet the conditions in Section 4 (a) and (b) of the Local Government Act 936 – meeting the required population thresholds, geographical contiguity and economic viability to be able to provide basic public services (Republic of Ghana, 2016).  It will also require technical innovation to work within existing fragmentation or reconstitute into larger planning areas, for cross-jurisdictional infrastructure development such as roads that runs through multiple Districts, allowing them to benefit from economies of scale and attract investment opportunities. It will also call for institutional reforms that prioritise planning effectiveness over political convenience. This includes the strengthening of legally binding inter-metropolitan coordination arrangements to help overcome the fragmentation, as exposed to be effective by projects such as GARID (Owusu, 2015). In addition, introducing data reconciliation tools such as statistical back-casting can help rebuild consistent time series for planning and monitoring (Afful et al., 2025). Aligning future boundary delineations should be guided by enumeration areas, as this will make it easier to conduct statistical analysis and maintain data comparability across administrative units. With these, Ghana could hope to achieve the sustainable, inclusive development that its people seek.

By Florence Ofosu Aburam – Urban Planner

List of references

Acheampong, R. A. (2019). Contemporary traditions of planning and spatial planning at the national level. In Spatial Planning in Ghana (pp. 89–118). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02011-8_4

Afful, D., Poku-Boansi, M., Doe, B., et al. (2025). Policy coherence for the creation of sustainable communities through mixed-use developments in Ghana. International Journal of Systems Engineering, 9(2), 45–62. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijse.20250902.13

Anoyege, R., Kuu-Ire, B. P., & Akanbang, B. A. A. (2024). Assessment of the implementation status, benefits, and challenges of the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act (Act 925) in the Upper West Region of Ghana. UDS International Journal of Development, 11(2), 145–167. https://doi.org/10.47740/690.udsijd6i

Fumey, A. (2018). Intergovernmental fiscal transfers and tactical political manoeuvrings: Evidence from Ghana’s District Assemblies Common Fund. UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2018/473. https://doi.org/10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2018/473-5

Iddrisu, Z., & Thill, J. C. (2024). Socio-economic development performance and convergence among metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in Ghana. Growth and Change, 55(4), 789–812. https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.70007

Mensah, J. V., Adamtey, R., & Mohammed, A. A. (2015). Challenges of newly created districts in Ghana: A case study of the Asante Akim North District. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 2(10), 78–95. https://doi.org/10.14738/ASSRJ.210.1550

Owusu, G. (2015). Decentralised development planning and fragmentation of metropolitan regions: The case of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, Ghana. Ghana Journal of Geography, 7(1), 34–58.

Penu, D. K. A. (2023). Territorialisation by claims-making: Evidence from region separation resistance in Ghana. Territory, Politics, Governance, 11(3), 456–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2023.2194917

Republic of Ghana (2016) Local Government Act, 2016. https://share.google/esum3ani3lgBugap9

Republic of Ghana (1992) The Constitution of the Fourth Republic of Ghana (Promulgation) Law. https://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/Ghana%20Constitution.pdf

Van Gyampo, R. E. (2018). Creating new regions in Ghana: Populist or rational pathway to development? Ghana Journal of Development Studies, 15(2), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.4314/GJDS.V15I2.1

World Bank. (2021). Ghana Accountability for Results in Development (GARID) Project Implementation Report. World Bank Group. https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P164330