The 10-day intensive workshop and conference is under the theme: Shaping Greater Tamale towards a planned and resilient metropolis. The program which brings together the different local stakeholders with multidisciplinary backgrounds and expertise is expected to undertake series of collective field visits with overall objective of developing proposals built on shared vision for the greater Tamale.
The workshop is an important milestone initiative of the game-changing EU funded sustainable cities phase l project which
seeks to support six rapidly growing cities in the Northern half of the country namely; Greater Tamale Area, Wa, Damongo, Nalerigu, Bolgatanga and Yendi to help in advancing
sustainable urban development as well as tackling challenges related to spatial growth and climatechange.
The beneficiary 6-city representatives and the rest of the workshop participants will be introduced to working sessions for the development of their respective
proposals while being critical about integrating lessons and adaptations for their respective urban planning process.
In his opening remarks, the Metropolitan Coordinating Director, Mr Jimah Yakubu who represented the mayor of Tamale commended the EU and other development partners for the funding support to address the huge development gaps faced by the greater Tamale area and the rest of the project cities.
Mr Jimah however bemoaned what he described as the iron curtain type of working relations between the central planning authorities(The MMDAs) and the traditional authorities especially in our spatial planning regimes. He therefore appealed to traditional authorities being the custodians of the land for a stronger collaboration in harmonising land administration plans and development control mechanisms in the Greater Tamale area.
In a strong worded statement to end his remarks, the Coordinating Director appealed to the donor agencies, particularly EU to consider enhancing our share of resources as greater Tamale to help deal with the increasing pressures on service delivery born out of the fact that Tamale is literally the capital in the entire northern regions and even parts of the Oti region which predisposes it to the influx of people from neighbouringcountries in the sahelian region.
Other speakers including, EU officials, Expertise France, the Northern Regional Economic Planning Officer- REPO, the MCE for Sagnerigu (the host Municipality) who was represented by the Municipal Coordinating Director, Development Planning Officers for both Tamale and Sagnerigu as well as members of the academia took turns to address the workshop, reflecting on the theme