The Garu District Assembly intends using its share of the Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) to improve connectivity, enhance youth programmes as well as support economic enhancement activities.
The DCE for Garu, Osman Musah said this when he spoke on the Day Break Upper East Show recently.
“From this broad 3 areas, we are looking at building bridges, linking communities that are very difficult to access. Link them so that they would be able to cart their farm produce to the farm centres and also be able to access inputs. Apart from the bridges, we are also looking at graveling roads. At the local level, we would need electricity to be able to facilitate production. We would want to connect electricity to most of the rural part. We have been at it and 49 of the communities have been connected to electricity.”
“Under youth development, we are looking at constructing youth development centres to develop the youth; at least one model centre in each of the artisan areas can be helpful. We can look at the weaving industry. We can look at fashion designing. We can also look at metal works areas,” he said.
To enhance local economic activities, the Assembly hopes to use portions of the funds from SOCO to build local markets and stalls.
It would be recalled that the Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia launched the Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) project to tackle conflict from the Sahel, reduce vulnerability to climate change, and strengthen local institutions, economic opportunities, and public trust.
The rationale behind the project, according to the Vice President, was to manage the surging conflicts including terrorism in the sub-regions which affect lives and the Ghanaian economy.
“It focuses mostly on border communities in regions where the citizenry especially women and the youth are exposed and are susceptible to the threat of terrorism from the Sahel region. The project focuses on dealing with issues relating to fragility, conflict, and violence”, he stated.
Dr. Bawumia said this when he launched the 5-year SOCO project in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. The US$150 million credit facility project is from the World Bank International Development Association (IDA) and will be disbursed to 48 districts in Upper East, North East, Upper West, Northern, Savannah, and Oti regions.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
