A day's stakeholder forum has been held in Tamale to stimulate evidence-driven discussions on urban governance and the delivery of goods and services within cities. The event, dubbed: 'Ghana Cities Monitor 2023,' was initiated by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD - Ghana) with support from Hewlett Foundation. Participants included representatives of public institutions, civil society organisations and NGOs. The forum was geared towards providing comprehensive, reliable and timely citizen experiential data on a wide array of services and infrastructure that affected the quality of life within Ghanaian cities. Madam Mavis Zupork Dome, a Research Analyst and Coordinator at CDD-Ghana, said the Ghana Cities Monitor report, was an easy-to-use tool for evaluating the provision of essential services and infrastructure necessary for the cities' economic, social and environmental well-being as well as the quality of life of city dwellers. She said the report also sought to strengthen evidence-driven decision-making and augment existing opportunities for public participation and accountability in the governance of the cities. The 2023 maiden edition of the Ghana Cities Monitor report was undertaken in 23 cities, including the three largest Metropolis and 20 Municipalities in Ghana's Greater Accra, Ashanti and the Northern Regions. Madam Dome said, 'The Ghana Cities Monitor report was developed using a total of six major components and their associated 17 sub- components, which collectively had 446 indicators.' She said, 'A total of 2,400 adults were engaged in face-to-face interviews across 150 enumeration areas, 100 enumeration areas were allocated to the purposively selected metropolitan areas and the remaining 50 renumeration areas to the randomly selected municipalities.' Mr Gildfred Asiamah, a Research Analyst at CDD-Ghana, who presented the findings of the report, said at the Metropolitan level, Kumasi Metropolis emerged the best performing city with a score of 41.0 out of 100 per cent, followed by Accra Metropolis scoring of 39.3 per cent, while Tamale Metropolis trailed with 34.2 per cent. He said the findings also suggested that the top five municipalities were mainly from Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions, where the Ayawaso West emerged first scoring 43.8 out of 100 per cent, followed by Juaben and Old Tafo with 43.4 and 43.3 respectively. Dr Adams Sulemana Achanso, the Dean of Faculty of Sustainable Development Studies at the University for Development Studies (UDS), during a panel discussion, underscored the need for educational reforms to reflect the needs of the citizenry, especially the youth. He said, 'Government's policies and programmes must shift from academic based to skills based to address issues of rural urban migration. Mr Richard Kambootah, the Deputy Director at the Institute of Local Government Studies, said it was important for the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), to intensify advocacy and sensitisation on government policies, programmes and the opportunities available at the local levels. He called on the MMDAs to adopt measures to raise funds to support the implementation of their programmes. Mrs Evita Emma Dunee, the Technical Advisor, Policy and Governance at the Ghana Developing Communities Association, commended CDD-Ghana for conducting the survey, and called on government to act swiftly to address the gaps in the report. CDD-Ghana later presented a copy of the report to government through the Northern Regional Coordinating Council.

Source: Ghana News Agency