By Christopher Tetteh
Sunyani (Bono), Sept. 26, GNA – Mrs Gifty Nyarko, the National President of the Local Government Service Association of Physical Planners (LoGSAPP), has called on the nation to promote her coastal resilience and preserve ocean health.
She said the ocean’s pivotal role in life sustenance, and driving socio-economic growth as well as stabilising the climate, remained unparalleled.
Mrs Nyarko, also the African Ambassador for Inclusive Urban Governance and Climate-Resilient Development made the call in a statement issued and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), to mark the 2025 celebration of the World Maritime Day (WMOD).
Every year on September 25th, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the global maritime community mark the annual WMOD to create awareness and advocate for sustainable practices to safeguard the aqua and marine environment.
The 2025 celebration is on the theme: “Our ocean, our obligation, our responsibility” and highlights how the world’s oceans sustain life, enable trade, and shape climate.
It further underscores the shared responsibility of nations and ocean users to harness that potential sustainably.
The statement urged particularly, urban and land-use governance systems to actively contribute to protecting ocean health and promoting coastal resilience, calling for capacity building for physical planners in climate-resilient and marine-sensitive development.
It said: “Our ocean is not an afterthought, but the foundation of our sustainable future and that should serve as a rallying point for embedding ocean stewardship into every level of planning and governance in Africa”.
The statement indicated that the intersection of rapid urbanisation and fragile coastal ecosystems in Africa presented both urgent challenges and unique opportunities, pressing the need to integrate ocean governance into national and local urban development frameworks.
It suggested mainstreaming ocean and coastal governance into urban planning, as strategic steps to operationalise objectives of the 2025 theme and called for inclusion of marine and coastal considerations in spatial and land-use planning systems on the African continent.
The emphasised that African urban planning policies ought to be those that addressed the land-sea interface, particularly in vulnerable coastal cities through the establishment of development buffers to reduce risks such as erosion, flooding and saltwater intrusion.
It highlighted the need for access to geospatial data, hazard maps, and climate models, alongside regional knowledge-sharing platforms to champion best practices to sustain the natural environment.
The statement called for the adoption of green building standards in coastal and port developments and encouraged a shift toward low-carbon ports and shipping, in line with IMO guidelines.
It outlined the importance of aligning local and national planning policies with global instrument agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction like the upcoming Global Plastics Treaty, and outcomes from the 2025 UN Ocean Conference.
The statement urged African Union institutions and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to embed ocean-climate-urban linkages into Agenda 2063 and related strategies.
GNA
Edited by Dennis Peprah/ Christabel Addo