By Benjamin Akoto
Sunyani, Mar. 24, GNA – Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister, has reiterated the need for stakeholders to develop a reliable zero-emission system paramount to the achievement of National Development Strategies (NDS) and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Africa has the fastest urbanisation rate in the world and by 2050, it is estimated that 14 African cities, including some in Ghana, would accommodate more than 10 million inhabitants.
She said urban communities were faced with limited access to resources, inadequate infrastructure and uncertain life prospects, hence new strategies were required for cities to deal with current and future challenges.
Madam Owusu-Banahene said this on Thursday at the Grand Finale Diagnostic Summary of Zero Emission Campus Master Plan, an initiative of the Zero-Emission Concepts for Urban Resilience in Selected African Cities (ZECURA) at the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani.
ZECURA is a project that seeks to reduce carbon emissions, waste in the system and convert the waste into other useful materials.
The three-year project started last year and would end in 2024.
It is being run concurrently in five selected African countries – Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Tanzania and Uganda in collaboration with the Institute for Applied Material Flow Management (IFAS), Higher Research Institute of Trier University of Applied Sciences in Germany, with funding from the German Government.
The Regional Minister said the project should help to contemplate “Innovation, zero carbon emissions, clean environment, industriousness and business as key to economic transformation”.
”As a country, we need to be innovative and appreciate that we cannot solve 21st-century problems by using 12th-century ideas’’.
“We require innovative ideas in business, finance, energy, the environment, the public sector, social development and all other sectors.”
She reminded city planners and the public of the usefulness of the circular economy in planning daily activities.
It was evident that objective planning for socio-economic development could not be achieved without looking at the impact of one system outflow on the other to justify such plans, Madam Owusu-Banahene said.
”Therefore, qualified and competent professionals must be encouraged to join and manage the circular economy systems where every output becomes an input for another system, with consequent economic advantage”.
Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, the Vice Chancellor (VC) of UENR, expressed the University’s commitment to sustainable development, facilitating its association with the ZECURA project, which should give a big boost to the development and deployment of local resources in the country.
”Such expertise will be very helpful to the development of our districts and municipalities…and inspire local experts to work harder to make the most out of the resources on all fronts,” he said.
The VC said as society advanced, new technologies would be introduced and the waste generated would become more diverse and complex.
With the Ghanaian population growing consistently, that meant the volume of waste generated was following similar trends.
One way to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development was through the utilisation of waste for other valuable products through circular economy, Prof
Asare-Bediako said, and called for the conscious use science, technology and innovation to advance socio-economic transformation for the numerous societal challenges.
Dr Ranahansa Dasanayake, from IFAS and Project Manager-General Researcher, ZECURA, said his team realised that Sunyani had in abundance unused resources and his University had generated money through waste, and therefore desired to impart that knowledge to the UENR.
”I expect that they first understand they are sitting on a gold mine, I am not referring to the real gold, I mean natural resources, they should understand they can do it if they want to change the world and together, they can go far and build the future”.
Prof. Nana Sarfo Agyemang Derkyi, Head of the Department, Renewable Energy and Engineering, UENR, and Lead Researcher/Country Coordinator, ZECURA, explained to the Ghana News Agency that though the project sought to ensure environmental cleanliness, there was the aspect of generating adequate income for the University and for communities’ benefit.
GNA