Hundreds of urban planning experts and development stakeholders have converged here in Accra for this year’s Ghana Urban Forum.
The event, which takes off today, is under the theme: “Unlocking the systems of planning, connecting and financing secondary and intermediate cities to propel growth towards the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda.”
Organised by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, the 2020 forum would discuss how systems of secondary cities play a vital intermediary role as economic, administrative and logistics hubs within national and global systems of cities.
It would further provide the broad spectrum of stakeholders, which include policy makers, government officials at the local, regional and national levels and academia, the platform to examine ways to leverage public resources to support equitable and promote sustainable local economic growth and development.
Additionally, the forum would assess ways in which secondary cities could work more collaboratively to improve their development prospects and become prosperous.
In an interaction with participants yesterday, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Osei Bonsu Amoah, stated that the decisions and opinions gathered at the forum would feed into the review of the national urban policy later this year.
He said government was committed to working with all stakeholders to develop and build urban centres that ensures improvement in standards of living of the populace.
In 2018, the forum focused on promoting spatial planning as a pre-requisite for Ghana’s industrialisation drive and served as a prelude to the ninth session of the World Urban Forum which ensured the development of inclusive, safe and resilient cities to reduce inequality and poverty in many cities across the globe.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
