350 Ghana Reducing Our Carbon (350-GROC), an environmental advocacy organisation has held a workshop on integrating Renewable Energy (RE) plans into the Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly in an effort to support the government’s Renewable Energy programme.
Chibeze Ezekiel, Coordinator for 350 GROC, during his presentation said their campaign against carbon emission, emphasizing that, “we promote more of RE to support government’s initiative.
Mr Ezekiel explained that as a Non- Governmental Organization, 350-GROCencourages sustainable socio-economic livelihoods among locals through organic agriculture, ecotourism improve and introduce innovative ways in waste management and disposal systems.
He told participants, “This time we decided to also support the national planning processes. As a requirement for the Assemblies to do the implementation processes, we decided to support them to inculcate Renewable Energy in their plans so that when they are reporting, they can demonstrate their contributions in the national agenda.”
He added that, based on the five districts engagement, the exercise is expected to be extended to the other districts in the country. The report after the exercise will be presented to the government, private sector, donor agencies to study what they did in the 5 districts for onward consideration so as to extend to the remaining districts.
Solomon Yamoah, the executive member of GROC stated that “We are planning to have 10 percent RE in our energy mix by 2030. In doing those things, we have to come together and if it is being implemented by the Local Authorities, it can trickle down to everybody. It is about time we also look into technology to diversify our energy consumption.”
The Ayawaso West Municipal is one of the 260 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana, and forms part of the 29 MMDAs in the Greater Accra Region.
The population of Ayawaso West Municipality is 70,667 made up of male 37,065 and female of 33,602 (based on the 2010 Population and Housing Census and a growth rate of 1.3%).
However, the projected population figure for 2018 is 86,446 and this is made up of 45,341 males and 41,105 females.
The goal of Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly is to facilitate the improvement of quality of life of the people within the Assembly’s jurisdiction through equitable provision of services for the total development of the Municipality within the context of good governance.
By: Latifa Carlos
