A network of civil society organisations has called for Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) principles to be formally embedded in how Ghana allocates and tracks spending from its Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA), the portion of the country’s oil revenues channelled into the national budget.
The call came during a national validation workshop organised by the Resource Justice Network (RJN)–Ghana in Accra on February 11, 2026, where members gathered to set the network’s advocacy priorities for the year and formally validate a research report examining GESI gaps in Ghana’s petroleum revenue management framework.
Sam Danse, Executive Director of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), which coordinated the workshop, said equity and social inclusion are essential to correcting persistent inequalities in how natural resource revenues are managed. “GESI principles are central and should be used to benchmark and track disbursement allocations,” he said, adding that the report’s six policy recommendations should guide member organisations throughout 2026.
RJN–Ghana coordinator Benard Anaba described the gap between Ghana’s resource wealth and its development outcomes as unacceptable. “Despite Ghana’s natural resource wealth, poverty and inequality remain high. Weak governance and limited attention to gender equality and social inclusion reduce the development impact of resource revenues,” he said, adding that environmental degradation from extractive activities continues to harm communities at the local level without adequate compensation or redress.
The workshop took place against a backdrop of significant shifts in how Ghana’s oil revenues are governed. A 2025 amendment to the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) fundamentally altered ABFA’s allocation architecture, removing the requirement that specific sectors and institutions receive ring-fenced shares of petroleum revenue. The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), Ghana’s independent oil revenue watchdog, was excluded from consultations on the amendment and subsequently had its budget slashed to just 21 percent of its annual requirements.
The RJN workshop also heard from Dr Eben Anuwa-Amarh, Technical Advisor for the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), who said President John Dramani Mahama has issued directives to strengthen the management and timely release of DACF allocations to Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs). He said the instructions are aimed at improving transparency and ensuring funds reach assemblies without unnecessary delays. Under the revised PRMA framework, up to five percent of ABFA earmarked for infrastructure can be channelled to the DACF.
Ghana’s petroleum revenues declined to $399.65 million in the second half of 2025, reflecting a broader production slump tied to ageing infrastructure and declining output, which dropped from 71.4 million barrels in 2019 to 48.2 million barrels in 2024. RJN members argued that with a shrinking revenue pool, ensuring that what remains is allocated equitably and with gender sensitivity becomes more, not less, urgent.
The network said it plans to engage MMDAs directly and push for the six GESI recommendations from the validated report to be adopted as advocacy benchmarks across its member organisations throughout the year.
