An Appraisal of the Implementation Process of Sport Policy in Ghana

Abstract

To implement policy, the local implementers must find a way to make sense of the goals, assumptions, and expectations associated with the policy and to reconcile them with their own organizational culture. In doing this, problems and conflicts may arise as a result of several factors that seem unavoidable and desirable from the bottom-up perspective. Several policy reforms and reorganization of administrative departments of sport in Ghana have not succeeded to arrest the rate of performance decline. It appears that the implementation process is much more complex than the introduction of a few administrative adjustments. The focus of this study was to identify the strategies and problems of the implementation process of current sport policy in Ghana. The results will contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon and help implementers modify their strategies as well as develop their own coping mechanisms to survive the tide of the decline in sport performance. The principal data collection technique was the administration of a structured questionnaire to 40 subjects purposively selected for their key role in the implementation process in Ghana. Data obtained was augmented with the review of available documents deemed relevant to the study. The qualitative method of analysis was used because it was deemed more relevant in understanding the phenomenon under investigation. An analysis of the data identified several problems and challenges. Some of the major problems were the acute financial constraints that implementers encounter, over-dependence on meager grants from the government, differential government treatment of sport agencies, and over-centralized management control. The study also identified some of the challenges that the implementation process faces such as: the lack of discretionary powers to allow decentralized agencies to make decisions based on existing constraints, the lack of motivation and commitment by implementers to compete for private sector resources, and absence of authority and/or commitment by implementers to employ other strategies in the acquisition of resources beyond current traditional sources.