2nd African Sister Cities Conference Opens

in Accra on Monday

All is set for the 2nd Africa Sister City Conference, Trade and Exhibition to be held in Accra from the 10th to 15th May 2010.

Twelve countries have confirmed their participation in this year’s conference. They include the USA, Brazil, China, Australia, South Africa and Nigeria. The rest are Swaziland, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Liberia and Ghana. The five-day Conference is under the theme: “Forging stronger partnership between African local government authorities and African traditional rulers for sustainable economic development through global partnership.” The Conference administrator, Nana Kena Otchere, says the conference provides a platform for interaction between traditional rulers and local government officials to discuss ways of ensuring sustainable development of their communities.

“There are usually frictions between local government officials and chiefs,” he said in an interview. “What we intend to do is provide a platform where the chiefs and local government officials to come together to dialogue and plan how they can complement each other in the development. The conference seeks to emphasise the role of traditional rulers in development.” He said it is also an opportunity for towns and cities in participating countries to enter into partnership with cities abroad through the Sister-City initiative and explore trade and other development opportunities for the benefit for their people.

He was of the view that chiefs play a major role in the sister city relationships since the metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives usually leave office after a short period of time.

“Chiefs have a relatively longer period and they can sustain the relationship between their communities and sister cities much longer,” he noted.

Nana Kena Otchere said many districts and cities in Ghana who participated in last year’s conference have benefitted in diverse ways and this year’s conference is expected to be an improvement over last year’s. In all five hundred and fifty participants, including one hundred and fifty youth are expected to attend.

Credit: Manasseh Azure Awuni