GSCSP LED PHASE II TRAINING ENDS IN HO.

HO – Monday May 08 – Tuesday May 09, 2023: The Office of the Head of Local Government Service (OHLGS) in collaboration with the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) and Ghana Enterprises Agency( GEA) has built the capacity of thirty five(35) selected Municipal Assemblies(MAs) and sixteen(16) Regional Coordinating Councils (RCC) on the Local Economic Development (LED) programme under the Ghana Secondary Cities Support Programme (GSCSP) funded by the World Bank. The fourth and final zone was held at Ho in the Volta Region which assembled sixty four (64) participants from Eastern, Greater Accra, Oti and Volta Regions.
The Volta Regional Coordinating Director, Mr Augustus Awity addressed the participants on behalf of the Head of Local Government Service. In his remarks, he stated the overarching purpose of the GSCSP which is to support MAs and for that matter secondary cities to provide urban services. However, an additional financing agreement increased the number of participating MAs and RCCs from 25 to 35 and 10 to 16 respectively consequently extending the programme completion from June 2024 to December 2025. Nonetheless, for the LED agenda to be achieved at the sub national level, there is a need for additional funding sources other than the Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfer regime.
That above ,he said influenced the involvement of other national institutions that have the mandate to develop the enterprise sector of the country, thus GIPC.
He encouraged participants to take advantage of the workshop and use the platform given them to leverage on their respective identified products for investments opportunities.
Facilitators from GIPC took turns to enlighten participants on promotional and investment opportunities through presentations, documentaries and working group sessions.
They also encouraged participants to utilize social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook amongst others as tools to promote their products.
The Coordinator for the GSCSP at the Ministry of Local Government Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD), Mr. Ralph Adu Gyamfi in a brief remark encouraged participants to facilitate the boosting of production in their localities. The need for cross cultivation of production for both consumption and income he said is key for growth and development. He also briefed participants on the current status of the GSCSP and encouraged the participating MAs and RCCs to utilize the funds in helping promote Local Economic Development.
The programme ended with a field visit to Caltech Ventures Ltd., a cassava processing factory in Hodzo in the Volta Region. Caltech is the first ethanol plant to begin production of Ethanol from cassava in Ghana.
The field visit was to among other things give participants the urge to start implementing their plans.
A total number of 260 Staff of the Local Government Service making up the four(4) zones have been trained on the GSCSP LED II.