UCLG honours Opong-Fosu

The United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) has honoured Mr Akwasi Opong-Fosu, Member of Parliament (MP) for Amenfi East and Minister of Local Government and Rural Development at the just-ended world summit of local and regional leaders held to coincide with the centenary celebration to commemorate the founding of the World Local Government Organisation.
Mr Opong-Fosu’s award was in recognition of his contribution to strengthening decentralisation and local governance through his leadership roles in the African Union of Local Authorities and International Local Government Organisations such as the United Nations Advisory Committee on Local Authorities.

The summit, which was on the theme: “Imagine Society, Build Democracy,’’ attracted more than 3,000 participants, including mayors, locally elected representatives, regional leaders, local government experts and the development partners.

Among the issues the summit considered were improvement of local public services and France urbanisation and its challenges, citizen’s participation in governance and local government’s role in the post 2015 development agenda.

Present at the ceremony included Mr Fathallah Outlabour, Mayor of Rabat, host of the summit; Joan Clos, Under Secretary General of the United Nations, Executive Director UN Habitat; Pascal Canfin, Minister delegate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in-charge of Development, France; and Mohand Laeriser, Minister of the Interior, Morocco.

The Rabat Declaration

The declaration recognises the need to bring innovative changes to achieve more just societies by reinforcing governance from the bottom up, under the leadership of inclusive local and regional governments.

It highlights the role of sub-national governments as engines and actors of development and in the promotion of dialogue as a vehicle for peace.

The outcomes of this congress further celebrate diversity and call for equality and inclusion, with culture and decent jobs as crucial components of resilient sustainable societies.

The declaration builds on the lessons learnt over a 100 years.

This centennial has seen many changes and yet the core issues that concern local and regional authorities as the closest level of government to the people remain the same.

Universal service provision that takes care of the most vulnerable in society will need to continue high in our agenda, and was included in the document that this congress adopted.

The congress clearly called for a broad understanding of urbanisation, bridging the urban-rural divide, including cohesion and a special approach based on solidarity and cooperation beyond political borders and administrations.

Making communities resilient and tackling the unavoidable urbanisation process in an efficient manner implies greater roles for local and regional authorities in international policy making, in particular, UN processes that define agenda that will affect communities world-wide.

Finally, the declaration took note of the aspirations of local and regional authorities for the upcoming Habitat III Conference where a different status for local and regional authorities before the United Nations Habitat agenda is expected to be achieved.

In order to ensure broad ownership, the declaration has been distributed among members before the congress.

The city of Bogota was chosen to host the 5th world congress and 3rd summit of local and regional leaders of the UCLG which will take place in 2016.

Daily Graphic/Ghana