SADA must place emphasis on road construction – Stakeholders
Participants at a workshop on Poverty Reduction in Northern Ghana have urged the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to prioritise road construction in the three Northern regions to open up the area for development.
They observed that road construction was the single most important infrastructural development that could among other things; link farming areas to the urban centres and woo investors to the area.
The workshop was organized by SADA in collaboration with the British Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank, the Participatory Development Associates and UNICEF in Tamale on Thursday.
It was on the theme: “Reaching the poor in Northern Savanna-Trends, Instruments and the Way Forward”.
The participants, who were made up of Civil Society Organisations, (CSOs), development partners and officials of SADA noted, for example that , in the Northern Region, apart from the Savelugu/Nanton District, which was linked by tarred road to the regional capital all the rest of the districts had deplorable roads.
They, therefore, called for the construction of a circular road that would link all parts of the three Northern regions to facilitate the movement of goods and services.
The workshop among other things featured the presentation of the findings, implications and the way forward of the Ghana Poverty Assessment, (GPA) which analysed the Ghana Living Standard Survey. It also evaluated the Participatory Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment (PPVA) which focused on the Northern, Upper East and West Regions.
The PPVA and the GPA were undertaken in collaboration with the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.
Dr Sulley Gariba, Development Policy Advisor on SADA, Office of the Vice-President, said the first major achievement of the Authority was to draw a strategic national economic plan for the development of the North.
He said the next stage was to develop a five-year development programme, which would focus on strategic infrastructural development, private sector development, investment promotion, livelihood empowerment and social protection and peace
Source: GNA