MUNICIPAL COORDINATING DIRECTOR EXPRESS HAPPINESS OVER THE CREATION OF A DISTRICT CSOs PLATFORM ON SDGs IN SUNYANI MUNICIPALITY

The Municipal Coordinating Director, Mr. Kingsley Kofi Sencherey has expressed happiness over the creation of a District CSOs Platform in the Sunayani Municipality. The Director was speaking on Wednesday August 14^th at a meeting held with a team from the National Secretariat of the CSOs Platform and representatives from GIZ Support for Decentralisation Reforms (SfDR) Programme-Agenda 2030, to introduce the conveners elected to serve the newly established district platform in the municipality.

The National Coordinator of the Platform, Mrs Ugonna Ukaigwe while introducing the Conveners noted that the purpose of the district platform is to ensure that community-based organisations are better positioned to engage their communities around the SDGs as well as support the local authorities to achieve the 2030 agenda. She urged the Municipality to work with the conveners and ensure their participation at the Municipal Coordinating and Planning Unit (MCPU).

In his speech, the Director observed that one of the major challenges that hamper development is that when people do not get information, they try to craft their own narrative. ‘I am happy that the CSOs will be with us, they will be the best people to send information to others. When CSOs understand the issues, they can speak to it’ he noted. The Director urged the CSOs to attend the meetings of the Municipal Coordinating and Planning Unit (MCPU) which is the technical planning committee of the Municipality.

The District Platform was established following an inception meeting organized on 13th August 2019 at the Sheila Executive Hotel in Sunyani. The meeting brought together a total of 16 national and community based Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in the municipality and registered with the Social Welfare Department. During the meeting, participants were taken through the SDGs and how to mainstream the SDGs targets and indicators into their programmes and projects.

Six organisations were endorsed to serve as the convening team for the District Platform. Four of them were elected while the fifth and sixth organizations were unanimously selected to ensure a balanced representation of women and youth among the conveners. The Conveners participated in a two-day training on data visualization as part of capacity building for data monitoring and reporting on the SDGs.

The Sunyani District Platform will be the fifth district platform to be set up by the National Secretariat in partnership with GIZ. Additional District Platforms have been scheduled for the coming weeks in Tamale, Bolgatanga and Koforidua.

Below is a list of the convening organisations for the Sunyani Platform:

1. Global Media Foundation - Convener

2. Global Alliance for Development Foundation

3. West Africa AIDS Foundation

4. Save our Environment Foundation

5. Makers Network Foundation

6. Sunyani Youth Development Association