The Cities Alliance, a global coalition of cities and development partners on Wednesday rolled-out modalities for Ghana to reduce urban poverty, improve the quality and impact of urban development cooperation.
Mr Julien Baskin, Senior Urban Specialist noted that the modalities were to build political commitment and create a stakeholders platform for
local authority and non-governmental organisations to scale up slum upgrading and city development strategies.
Speaking at a day's workshop on "Ghana Land Service and citizenship for the Urban Poor Community," in Accra, Mr Baskin said the project was to distil and share knowledge on sound practices and experiences, and to catalyse citywide and nationwide impacts.
The workshop attended by traditional leaders, assembly members, local authority administrators, slum dwellers, and non-governmental organisations, was organised by Peoples Dialogue on Human settlement, a community based non-governmental organisation.
He explained that too many developing countries continued to adopt a hostile approach to the urban poor, forcing them to obtain land and essential services informally by creating development problem.
Mr Baskin disclosed that population growth indices indicated that by the next 30 years the world's population would double, stressing that just over the last year, slum population had seen tremendous growth of about 43 billion people across the world.
"This calls for urgent development plan to bring cities together in a direct dialogue with bilateral and multilateral agencies and financial
institutions to share ideas on developmental role of local governments," he said.
He said Cities Alliance collaborated with non-governmental organisations including Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and Habitat for
Humanity International, Multi-lateral organisations; European Union, UNEP,
UN-HABITAT and the World Bank.
Mr Baskin said the Cities Alliance provided matching grants in support of the process by which local stakeholders defined their vision for their city and its economic growth, environmental and poverty reduction objectives, with clear priorities for actions and investments.
He stressed the importance of combining local experiences with global knowledge for an effective approach to dealing with slums.
"The correct interface and balance between local reality and global knowledge is vital if slums are to be eradicated," he noted.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Farouk Braimah, Executive Director for People's Dialogue on Human Settlements, called for a comprehensive urban slum policy.