The Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) project has initiated and completed projects in the area of Health, water, Sanitation, education, Agriculture, youth empowerment, arts and culture and other projects in the fifteen municipal and districts in the Upper East Region.
Over 450 projects in the various sectors of the economy have so far been completed and handed over to the beneficiary communities.
SOCO has done 100,2 projects in the five regions of the North and Oti Region as part of the entire project outlook of 150 million facility from the international Development Association/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development of the World Bank Group.
The project is expected to deliver resilient community infrastructure and assets through a Community-Driven Development approach (CDD). The proposed Project is been implemented over a period of five (5) years.
The Project Development Objective is to improve regional collaboration and socio-economic and climate resilience of border-zone communities in the target northern regions of the Gulf of Guinea countries exposed to conflict and climate risks.
As part of the handing over the over 450 projects in the Upper East Region, the Zonal office of SOCO has handed over completed projects in the Builsa South District.
Five projects made up of CHPS compound at Teudema, water closet with toilet and bathrooms, Renovation of Fumbisi meat shop at Yabepeling-Fumbisi, completion of 1No. 3 unit classroom blocks with office, staff, other facilities and supply of wooden dual desks at girls model school at Pentengsa and Batuisa primary school.
At Pentengsa girls model school with only 43 girls, the Builsa South District Assembly and the Ghana education service have called on SOCO to consider providing a hostel facility for the girls who travel far distances from the various communities to the school.
The Builsa South Education director, Richard Atigsijam Akum-Nyemi applauded the efforts of SOCO in reducing the infrastructure deficit in the education sector in the district and urged SOCO to consider the dormitory facility for the girls at Pentengsa.
“It is an opportunity for this district to benefit this great edifice. We are so grateful. I want to assure you that we will give the building the necessary protection so that it can serve as the needed benefits.
I must say that there are still a lot of things to be done. I heard that there is going to be that component of boarding. I will plead with you to try and come with the boarding facility so that the building or the students and teachers can do good for our community.
In fact, enrollment of the girls’ boarding school is a challenge. And once we have our community members here, I want to plead with them to communicate this good message to the people around here so that they can bring their wards for admission”, he said.
“Currently, we have only 43 students, you know, and that is not good enough. I want to also say that if we can get a primary school so that it can feed the school, it would do us a lot of benefits. We need to do a lot of things. But for me, I can assure you that what we are yearning for will come to fruition.
We will use it for the maximum benefit of the community” he added.
The District Chief Executive for Builsa South, Anne Musah reiterated the need for communities and beneficiaries to these projects to cultivate the habit of good maintenance culture for the long benefit of the projects. She said, the Assembly is well initiating projects from the various funds including the common fund to complement the efforts of other development partners and that, the Assembly will monitor closely the projects to ensure the projects benefit more people.
The Zonal Coordinator of SOCO, Samuel Agyarko Larbi outlined the rational and objectives of the project and how important these projects are to the development of the beneficiary regions.
“I think we are impressed about all the projects that are done in the Builsa South. So far, as a project in total, 40 districts are benefiting the five northern regions and Oti region, making six regions, but 48 districts are benefiting from the project. For the Upper East, all the regions are benefiting, all the 15 regions. So far, SoCo, has done more than 1,002 projects for all the six regions.
For Upper East, we have done over 450 projects.
For Builsa South, we have done 41 projects as of today. So we continue to support the assembly, and the government continue to support the assembly with this kind of funding”, he said.
“So we also want to encourage the assembly and then the schools to plant trees, continue to plant trees. Although tree planting is part of the project, but because of the bush fires or bush burning. We should consider our trees. And we also encourage the community and the schools and the project areas to plant trees around them and we continue to support assembly as usual”.
SOCO in collaboration with the municipal and district Assemblies is expected to hand over more completed projects in all the districts in the Zone.