Meeting the City Makers in Kumasi and Sèmè-Podji

Jeroen Diepemaat, alderman of the Dutch municipality of Enschede, and Julian Baskin, special advisor at Cities Alliance, Members of the advisory committee of the Governance of Inclusive Green Growth in Cities (DEALS) programme set foot on the ground in Kumasi (Ghana) and Sèmè-Podji (Benin) from 2-4 of October 2019. They were accompanied in both cities by delegations from the other cities and VNG International project managers. The meetings gave rich insights in the urban development issues that the cities are dealing with and were ground for fruitful discussion. This can be illustrated by examples:

• How to improve urban mobility and enhancing accessibility in a central business district full of market activities and give live to satellite market areas? How do policy measures have an impact on drivers, market sellers and slum dwellers?
• How to manage the whole waste chain to improve on health conditions, livelihood, housing, and water? How do policy measures have an impact on fishery communities that dwell on the coast and lagoon?

In between meetings, in both cities a field trip took place to see in person the physical environment in which developments take place. Please read the reports (Kumasi, Sèmè-Podji) to get a full picture yourself.