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These stages are examined in turn

a.                Agenda setting: if we examine Ghana and make an attempt to catalogue all the needs and demands of the people we will find the dimensions staggering.

If we combine the individual needs and the domestic and international concerns of the country we will create a seemingly endless list of potential items for the country’s policy agenda.

The potential list of policy issues of a country is referred to as a country’s systemic agenda however not all of these wants and demands occupy visible spots on the governments institutional agenda.

 In point of fact only a relatively small number of these demands attain such institutional agenda status and therefore become the focus of public policy making.

Generally, the level of economic development is considered a possible determinant of agenda and of decision making on a wide variety of policy issues. Those who set the agenda in Ghana include civil society organizations, political parties the executive (government), interest groups and associations, think tanks, the courts, development partners, IMF, World Bank

b.               Policy Formulation: Once a problem has arrived on the institutional agenda, a course of action to solve, reduce or dismiss the problem must be created.

The formulation stage generally involves developing and evaluating proposed solutions and programs.

At this stage many conceivable policy alternatives are rejected because they are seen as technically not feasible or politically unacceptable by major participants in the policy making process.

 Often, the agenda setting process gets an issue on the institutional agenda without generating an acceptable or clear definition of the policy problem and its causes.

Ghana’s policy formulation has over the years been dominated by bureaucratic network where government actors especially the executive bureaucracy dominates with minimal effective participation from outside.

 The trend is however changing under the 4^th republic. Increasingly, the country is moving towards a pluralistic network where many interest groups are active but the government still retains the policy formulation initiative.

c.                Decision Making/ Policy Adoption: Once the political process has succeeded in eliminating many potential policy options, the moment arises to make a decision to create a new policy to revise an existing one or alternatively take no action.

 The decision making stage is the component of the policy making process that involves the smallest number of direct participant with the infrequent exception of policy questions put to vote via a referendum or an initiative only the appropriate elected or appointed government officials can make decisions about the use of public authority.

d.               Policy Implementation: At the implementation stage we are concerned with what is done to put a policy into action.

 In the early years of policy research, most analyst focused on the first 3 stages of the policy making and concluded that the real action centered on policy decision making and events leading up to the decision.

However, by the early 1990’s, a variety of studies demonstrated the implementation stage is crucial to the success or function of a policy.

 At the implementation stage the individuals and agencies are often given great deal of latitude in determining the specific terms and requirements of a new law or regulation.

 Because of this delegation of authority in Ghana, the bureaucracy is the major location for policy implementation and enforcement and this places a key role in interpreting and elaborating the government’s broad policy guidelines.

Policies are usually implemented through 4 basic instruments:

1.       Direct Government instruments: This involves regulations, the direct provision of services or the operation of state owned enterprises (SOES)

2.       Market instruments: This involves deregulation; incentives intended to motivate certain behaviours within a free market.

3.       Voluntary instruments: This is a situation where government mobilizes their power of persuasion to convince the public to address certain concerns.

4.       Mixed instruments: involves the combination of some or all of these options indicated above.

e.               Policy Evaluation: Policy evaluation is synonymous with appraisal, rating and assessment, words which imply efforts to analyze policy outcomes in terms of some set of values. In a more specific terms, policy evaluation refers to the production of information about the worth or value of policy outcomes.

 There are 3 sets of activities involved in the evaluation process:

1.       Measuring output

2.       Comparing output performance against desired results.

3.       Correcting any deviation or inadequacies.

A policy can be evaluated by any of the following

a. A policy maker	d. Outside Experts (consultants
b. Policy implementers	e. Academics
c) Members of the public

Evaluation is important for 3 reasons:

1.       It provides reliable and valid information of policy performance.

2.       It contributes to the clarification and critique of values that underlines the selection of goals and objectives.

3.       It contributes to the application of other policy analytic methods including problem restricting and recommendation.

CRITERIA FOR POLICY EVALUATION

1.       Effectiveness: it refers to whether a given policy or alternatives results in the achievement of valued outcomes. It refers to the degree to which a policy attains objectives. The following rations can be used to evaluate effectiveness:

i.                    Actual resources consumed: plan use of resources.

ii.                  Actual program activities performed: planned activities.

iii.                Attainment of objectives attributable to program: attainment desired.

2.       Efficiency: it refers to the amount of efforts required to produce a given level of effectiveness. Efficiency is the relationship between inputs and outputs. The following rations are commonly used to evaluate efficiency:

1.       Output generated: the amount of efforts required to produce a given level of effectiveness.

2.       Actual activities performed: resources expended.

3.       Objectives attained : activities performed

3.       Adequacy: it refers the extent to which any given level of effectiveness satisfies the needs, values or opportunities that gave rise to a problem. It brings to the fore the relationship between cost and effectiveness.

4.       Equity: it is closely related to legal and social rationality and refers to the distribution of effects and efforts among different groups in society. An equitable policy is the one where the effects or efforts are fairly distributed.

5.       Responsive: it refers to the extent that a policy satisfies the needs, preferences or values of a particular group.

6.       Appropriateness: The criteria of appropriateness is intimately related to substantive rationality; since questions about the appropriateness of a policy are not concerned with individual set of criteria but 2 or more criteria taken together. Appropriateness refers to the value or worth of a program’s objective and to the tenability of assumption underlines these objectives.