The Bureau of Integrated Development of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (BIRD – KNUST) on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Sekyere Afram Plains District Assembly, at Drobonso in the Ashanti Region.
Mr Hamidu Suleman, the District Chief Executive(DCE), Sekyere Afram Plains, noted that the aim of the MoU was to promote sustainable and inclusive rural development in the area.
The DCE noted that the partnership agreement would be achieved through a university-community engagements model with knowledge and expertise in areas of education, research and capacity building.
He said the collaboration would focus on the development of proposals to seek funding to address identified needs of the district and to produce an annual report on the status of rural development in the area.
Mr Suleman stated that the agreement would provide students internship and related academic services and strengthen the institutional capacity of decentralised departments and agencies in the Sekyere Afram Plains district.
” The five-year strategic partnership agreement which is the first of its kind in the area, will also support informed programming and evidence-based decision making” he stated.
The DCE reechoed the commitment of the Sekyere Afram Plains district assembly to improve infrastructural and human resource development in the area and implored citizens locally and abroad to contribute their quota.
Mr Suleman expressed gratitude to the Vice Chancellor for KNUST, Professor Rita Akosua Dickson and her team of experts and Research Assistants among other stakeholders from BIRD, for their support to the area.
The Director, BIRD – KNUST, Dr Ebenezer Owusu – Addo, in his address said the partnership was key to the attainment of United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Dr Owusu – Addo noted that the MoU aligned with the university’s Vice Chancellor’s thematic areas of constructive agreement with stakeholders.
“The team, as part of the agreement, held a meeting with the various Junior High Schools in the district to educate students on programmes offered at KNUST and their admission requirements” he stated.
The Director said BIRD was a research center in the college of Agriculture and Natural Resources at KNUST, which initiates, conducts and promotes multi-discipline academic and applied research on rural development.
FROM EMMANUEL ADU GYAMFI, DROBONSO
