An interactive web platform to foster accountability and assess performance of Ashesi University student government

Abstract

Effective democratic governance is still gaining its roots in Ghana. With time, people have become more aware of their societies and the effort put in by their leaders to make it better. For a leader, being accountable to the people is taking steps to ensure that his or her actions and promises are binding. Accountability remains one of the challenging factors in governance because the people can assess the performance of the incumbent. This project therefore seeks to provide a system centered on Ashesi University College, for assessing student government and fostering accountability at each stage of the electoral process. The development of this system went through several stages, including data collection through surveys from members of the Ashesi community to get their input on what a potential system could look like, to several iterations of the website itself to test its functionality. This paper assesses the current state of governance on a national level as well as on the Ashesi campus, pointing out the downfalls as well as areas that could be improved while outlining how the system is built and the coding languages that went into the different facets of its structure. It also speaks about current systems that are tackling accountability issues in governance. Finally, the limitations and potential future work that the system could be used for is discussed and conclusions are given to the work overall.