Strengthening Local Multiparty Democracy in Ghana

Danish Institute of Parties and Democracy (DIPD), the Socialist People's Party and a range of Danish political parties support the process of strengthening multiparty democracy, locally as well as nationally and doing efforts to combat electoral violence often coordinated by politically active youth. The project is implemented by two leading think tanks in Ghana: Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and The Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG).

Strengthening the Political Parties  

Political parties in selected constituencies have improved capacity to communicate policies and campaign effectively to all segments of the local communities in selected districts. 

The need for political dialogue    

Effective local democracy can only exist if there is a conducive environment and decentralized structures in the political parties. DIPD and IDEG are creating national multiparty dialogues for the leadership in the political parties to address some of the more systemic issues that need to be addressed for effective local democracy. This is being implemented through local townhall meetings in selected districts at same time as facilitating high-level multiparty dialogue.

Preventing violence through political tolerance  

As most of the incidents of violence are perpetrated by political youth groups the work towards combating these incidents is being done through local Peace Boot Camps for youth politicians.

Through multiparty engagements and dialogue, the momentum for reforming the political system at local level has been maintained and initial steps to reduce the cost of doing politics have been made. Furthermore, political tolerance between youth in hotspot districts have improved and this will hopefully lead to less violence before, during and after the 2020 election in Ghana.