The engagement, held In Sekondi, provided a platform for participants to discuss the successes and challenges, and identify areas that needed strengthening to help in an inclusive and effective implementation of the TCSPP.

The TCSPP is an initiative being implemented by the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) and its sister-city in ltaly, Palermo Municipality in collaboration with the Centre for Social Science Research, Kumasi Technical University, and other international partners.

The project, which is in its final year, is a three-year European Union (EU) funded initiative being implemented in Sekondi-Takoradi to enhance the capacity of the STMA to address the increasing challenges of urban management, climate change, unemployment, and poverty among other issues within the Metropolis.

To ensure participatory development process and effective implementation of the TCSPP, officials from the Centre for Social Science Research at the Kumasi Technical University led a focus group discussion with key stakeholders to seek their support in gathering relevant data to assess progress made and challenges of the implementation of the project.

Participants at the engagement lauded the implementers of the TCSPP in Sekondi-Takoradi, and said the project had brought considerable development within the Metropolis.

They said through the project, issues of sanitation and hygiene within the area had improved with the implementation of the “Operation clean your surroundings campaign” component of the TCSPP.

They mentioned that other aspects like youth empowerment and skill training programmes, climate action initiatives, and inclusive governance process had also improved tremendously.

The participants, however, raised issues on sustainability, and appealed to the project’s implementers to put in place robust systems to ensure the interventions under the TCSPP continued after it had ended.

Dr. Edmund Ayesu, an official from the Centre for Social Science Research at the Kumasi Technical University said the engagement was for them to evaluate the objectives, outputs and outcomes of the TCSPP vis-à-vis its success and challenges.

He said the input collated would help them define the way forward and re-strategize to complete the implementation of the project.