Minister inaugurates alley pavement in Ga Mashie

Mr Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development has inaugurated an 816 square-meter alley pavement in Ga Mashie to upgrade the local slums.

The project was implemented under the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) sponsored by the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with the UN Habitat and funded by the European Union.

Mr Vanderpuye said the project is timely because it falls within the month for the celebration “Urban October” declared by the UN Habitat to raise awareness, promote participation and engage the international community towards urbanisation and the new urban agenda.

He explained that October 31, is used to promote Better Urban Future, and that the Ministry in collaboration with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) climaxed the World Habitat day with a durbar with emphasis on providing public spaces such as walk ways, alley pavements, road light of ways and markets.

He said since 2011, the UN Habitat had initiated interventions aimed at strengthening community, city and national key stakeholder’s capacities in participatory slum upgrading in the country and other African countries.

He said the PSUP has provided enabling framework for improving the lives of at least two million slum dwellers globally and that the approach adopted is the involvement of community members through an effective participatory manner.

Mr Nii Teiko Tagoe, Programme Coordinator for PSUP said the project is piloted in Accra Metropolitan area in Ga Mashie and is to be replicated across all cities in the country after a validation of slum policy.

He said Phase I of the project was on profiling of slum situation in the AMA, under Phase II, the community identified some projects to be undertaken including improvement in waste collection, improving many alley connecting the community.