The Twin-Cities in Sustainable Partnership Project is a 3-year project being implemented in the cities of Sekondi-Takoradi (Ghana) and Palermo (Italy) funded by the European Union (EU). It is being implemented under the EU’s “Local Authorities: Partnerships for Sustainable Cities Programme” launched in 2019. The global objective of the Programme is to Promote Integrated Urban Development through Partnerships built among Local Authorities to address Sustainable Urban Development, focusing on capacity building and upscaling of long-lasting partnerships and cooperation through peer-to-peer exchanges
The project aims at enhancing the City Authorities capacity to respond to perennial challenges of urban sprawl, climate change, unemployment, poverty, exclusion, and the unprecedented new realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the project is geared towards enhancing urban management, climate resilience, fostering transnational cooperation, and boosting socio-economic development through employment generation and valorizing the cultural heritage of the twin-cities of Sekondi-Takoradi (Ghana) and Palermo (Italy). The Project is being implemented by the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) as the lead implementer and the Municipality of Palermo (Italy), in partnership with the following local and international organizations: Cooperazione Internazionale Sud Sud (CISS), Ghana-Sicily Business Forum and Kumasi Technical University).
Overall Outcome of the Project: Enhanced multi-level urban governance in Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Area (STMA) oriented towards a green, inclusive and cultural-sensitive integrated urban development
The growth of Sekondi-Takoradi in the last decade has been spurred by the discovery and production of oil and gas in the Western Region of Ghana. However, as the Metropolis becomes increasingly urbanized with population growth, management of urban-space for development has become challenging to regulate, climate resilience is being tested and excessive pressure are being exerted on municipal services. Equally, grassroots participation in decision-making is hampered by insufficient resource mobilization or allocation to the sub-structures, resulting in dwindling social safety nets and lack of needed attention to the issues onfronting the vulnerable, deprived and marginalised groups