By Jeremiah Nutsugah
The Minister for Local Government, Decentralization, and Rural Development, Hon. Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, who is also the Member of Parliament for Techiman South in the Bono East Region, has urged MMDAs to champion the urban development agenda within their jurisdictions.
Speaking at the forum themed “Nurturing Roots, Growing Futures: Combining Policies and Partnerships for Urban Resilience and Transformation,” Korsah emphasized the significant opportunities urbanization presents for development.
“Urbanization presents a lot of opportunities that have the potential to change the fields of our development,” he stated.
Korsah hopes that urban development actions will focus on downward accountability, digitalization, citizen participation, inclusion in urban governance, a circular economy, strategic public-private partnerships, a systems approach to urban coordination, and creating child-friendly environments.
Guided by the principles of inclusivity, he expressed his hope that national policies and strategies would be transformed into short, medium, and long-term local actions aimed at achieving transformative and sustainable urban development.
“It is our hope to strengthen existing partnerships as well as build new ones towards urban development, create awareness, encourage collaboration, and foster knowledge and experience sharing on urban development,” he added.
Korsah urged all participants to join the discussions to ensure the achievement of key objectives and anticipated outcomes for this year’s forum.
“We are grateful to all ministries, departments, agencies, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations who have partnered with us over the years in planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating various interventions on urban development.”
