Traditional Local Authorities Role in Maternal and Child Health in Ghana

Abstract

"One of the Great Transformations of the latter half of the 20th Century occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa as former European colonies gained their independence and established their own constitutions and systems of government. Success in this endeavor was highly variable. One West African country, Ghana, has reached a point of stability and progress as a democracy. One feature of the 1992 Ghanaian Constitution recognized and codified structures of traditional local authorities which predated the British colonization and survived throughout the colonial period. Such authorities which are separate from the central national government and decentralized district government include chiefs, queen mothers, divisional chiefs, and council members. These politically neutral structures of traditional governance are recognized as contributing to the maintenance of pre‐colonials’ religious and cultural heritages, norms, and values, and have roles of consulting, “leaders of the people,” custody of natural resources, and social, and educational development. In particular, Queen‐mothers have responsibility for the health and development of local women and children as documented in a 2008 study of support for HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable children (Lund and Agyei-Mensah). This paper will examine these structures from the Political Economy perspective of Nobel Laureate (in Economics) Elinor Ostrom as written in her famous book, Governing the Commons, and her later work which applied her institutional framework to a variety of community resources in developing countries examined through case studies. Using case studies Dr. Ostrom, a political scientist, examined the ability of local people to collaborate and organize themselves to manage common (community) resources separate from central government authorities. Late in her career she included health as among those community resources. In the paper we will examine the history of the traditional local authorities in Ghana, the provisions of the constitution which codify their role, and the nature of their organization. Since the health and nutrition of mothers and young children remain as an unfulfilled goal transferring from the Millennium Development Goals to the new Sustainable Development Goals, we will then examine the position of the queen mothers and their responsibilities to oversee the health and human development of the women and children in their communities."