Urban Slum Upgrading as a Form of Regeneration in Developing Countries: Zongo and Inner-City Communities in Ghana

Abstract

Urban regeneration tends to mean different things to different people, everywhere. Particularly in the developing countries, holistic urban regeneration tends to be mixed up with its, generally, physical form, urban renewal, and its own sub-modes, including slum upgrading. These portray in Ghana’s Zongo and Inner-Cities Regeneration Programme, initiated in 2017, especially for reasons of political economy, politics, financing, institutional, and character of urban degeneration. However, since, significant achievements have been made in terms of physical, environmental, economic, social and cultural transformation. Such progress as well as challenges encountered hold implications for future project implementation. The latter includes inadequate funding and personnel, political interference, lacking scale-up, limited programme coverage, ineffective community management structures, constrained project planning, other institutional and governance issues. Suggestions are made for the amelioration of these, focused on adequate funding, institutional reforms, a proactive and settlement/spatial planning approach, and introduction of Zongo Community Development Committees.

Keywords: Urban regeneration, urban renewal, slum upgrading impacts, Zongo and Inner-City Regeneration and Development Programme, urban policy, institutional contexts, urban sustainability

DOI: 10.7176/CER/16-1-04

Publication date: January 31^st 2024