STAR-Ghana Holds Results Reporting Workshop for Penplusbytes and Other Oil and Gas Grantees

STAR-Ghana, a multi- donor pooled funding mechanism (Funded by DFID, DANIDA, EU and USAID), on 11th and 12th June organized a training workshop on how to report on results and Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) for its Grant Partners (GP) working in promoting transparency and accountability in Ghana’s oil and gas sector.

The two-day interactive workshop, held at the Best Western Premier Hotel in Accra, took grant partners through the different stages of project implementation and also best practices to adopt to ensure proposed projects make the right impact and achieve the desired outcomes for the benefit of citizens and also contribute to national development. The STAR-Ghana team who also served as workshop consultants explained how to ensure project activities conform to Value For Money standards, on how to report on results and Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI).

Wendy Otu, Programs Officer at STAR-Ghana in her presentation stated that “results-based management focuses on accomplishments of projects. Accountability and transparency has now become an important assessment tool for donor countries; this therefore means that reporting on activities is no longer enough. The focus now is on the impact the project has on its beneficiaries.”

Penplusbytes in January this year, together with seventeen other Grant Partners received funding from STAR-Ghana. Penplusbytes is currently implementing its project  “Empowering the media to play an active role over oil and gas revenue and resources”, and has already carried out a baseline survey to ascertain the quantity and quality of oil and gas reporting by the Ghanaian media and the organisation is currently building the capacity of 10 Ghanaian journalists selected from across the country to specialize in reporting on oil and gas and the extractive sector leading to an improvement in the coverage of oil and gas to better inform citizens and CSOs to better hold government accountable and promote good governance in the sector.

Penplusbytes will also facilitate both online and offline knowledge exchange between the media and CSOs on key oil and gas revenue and resource issues leading to better access to relevant information and also contributing to effective watch-dog role over the oil and gas revenue and resource management.