Stakeholders meet to tackle growing urbanization challenges
A consultative meeting to prepare a spatial development framework for Kumasi metropolis and six adjoining districts to effectively tackle the growing urbanization challenges has been held in Kumasi.
Ejisu-Juaben, Kwabre East, Atwima-Kwanwoma, Bosomtwe, Atwima-Nwabiagya and Afigya-Kwabre are the other districts.
The project, known as Greater Kumasi, is the initiative of the Ghana Government with technical and financial support from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
To ensure its success, a former Ashanti Regional Director of Town and Country Planning Department, Mr Kofi Owusu Achaw, says there should be in place institutional and management structures to oversee the implementation of the comprehensive urban development plan.
He identified the lack of these structures as the bane of effective urban development planning efforts in the country.
Mr Owusu Achaw said the need for a comprehensive, coordinated plan for Kumasi and its environs had been recognized many years ago but the absence of commitment, affected effective implementation.
The new project offers the opportunity to concretize the vision and aspiration of all stakeholders and to allow them to make input into the effective development of these areas, he added.
The objective of the project is to help address the housing, transportation, sanitation, unemployment, tourism and other urbanization difficulties facing the city and major towns in the periphery of Kumasi.
It would provide Kumasi and the other districts the platform to have a comprehensive long term strategic vision and subsequent statutory defined land use patterns, to aid the management of urban growth.
Mrs Rosemond Adusei, Ashanti Regional Director of Town and Country Planning Department, said stakeholder consultation was the key to the successful implementation of spatial planning systems, adding that, all stakeholders in the adjoining districts had been involved in the exercise to ensure the success of the project.
Source: GNA