In 2012, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) launched the Ghana National Urban Policy Framework and Action Plan and institutionalised the Ghana Urban Forum to provide a platform for stakeholders, city managers, academia, civil society organisations and the urban poor to dialogue on pertinent urban challenges. This eventually affects decision-making and policy direction needed to ensure the necessary changes in our cities and towns. 

Since its institutionalisation, the MLGRD through its Urban Development Unit (UDU) has organised successful urban fora across the country in secondary cities and the capital city Accra. The Ghana Urban Forum has been successful over years with support from the state and development partners, such as the Cities Alliance and GIZ-SfDR.

The participatory process of the GUF and the platform it provides for dialogue on issues that affect urban development has underpinned its importance as a consultative mechanism within the urban landscape in the country. Prior to Ghana’s participation in Habitat III, the Urban Forum was deployed as a means to solicit inputs for the New Urban Agenda and the preparation of Ghana’s Habitat III Report.

In the aftermath of Habitat III, it is imperative that as a country we begin the journey of ensuring complete ownership of the New Urban Agenda and strategize on how to localise it for transformative change. The Ghana Urban Forum, presents a unique opportunity for this process.

The general objective of the Forum was to provide a platform for dialogue on the urgency and centrality of spatial planning as a catalyst for (industrial) economic transformation. It also presented an opportunity to share and to relevant research, data and information generated in the urban space and ways leading to localising the New urban agenda viz the review/development of a comprehensive National Urban Policy Framework.

Considerable focus was given to promote current economic initiatives of the Government and selected development partners, within the context of locational and industrial policies.

The Forum took place on the 18^th January 2018 under the theme: “Localising the New Urban Agenda: Promoting Spatial Planning as a Pre-Requisite for Ghana’s current Industrialisation Drive”.