The Mayor of Accra, Hon. Elizabeth Kwatsoe Sackey has highlighted Ghana’s commitment to deepening ties with Rwanda by fostering cooperation and exploring avenues for collaboration between the cities of Kigali and Accra.

According to her, the ties between them will enforce a long-term union leading to other opportunities of mutual benefit to the two parties.

Mayor Sackey said this when Rwanda’s High Commissioner to Ghana, H.E. Rosemary Mbabazi called on her at the City Hall to enhance bilateral relations between the two countries.

The two female leaders during the deliberations touched on various pertinent issues of mutual interest, some of which were cultural exchanges, environmental and sanitation management, sports, education, and women empowerment.

The Mayor reiterated Accra’s willingness to engage in mutually beneficial exchanges with Kigali especially in the areas of sanitation and management and stressed the significance of learning from each other’s experiences as well as working together to address common challenges such as urban development and gender equality in their various communities.

In her remarks, H.E. Rosemary Mbabazi emphasized the importance of dialogue and cooperation in driving progress and fostering understanding between the two nations.

She pointed out that sports were a critical area to nurture the talents of the youth adding that although the people of Rwanda were catching up on football they were better in basketball, volleyball, swimming, and athletics, among others.

“We’re not very good in sports, especially football, but we’re very good in basketball and volleyball. We’re catching up on football, so we have recreated pitches across the city of Kigali to promote it… We also realised that you have sports grounds in every community, and, we want to learn from that. We don’t have that in our country, and we believe this will help to nurture young talents, ” she said.

She said the city of Kigali, as part of its women empowerment programmes, had organised street hawkers in cooperatives and constructed markets that were accessible to sell their products in a safer and better environment.

“Concerning women and the youth, I am very passionate about that. We used to have a lot of women hawkers on the streets with kids at their backs. In the city of Kigali, where we have a lot of them, we have organised them into cooperatives and constructed markets that are accessible so they can sell their products in a safer and better environment. This is something we can look at, ” she said.

She also cited the   Kigali Car Free Day an event held on the first and third Sunday of every month where some specific roads were blocked off for people to walk, run or cycle freely without interference from motorbikes or vehicles adding the city of Accra could learn from the practice to ensure an environmentally sustainable city.

Touching on waste management, she emphasised the need for both cities to share and adopt best practices to improve sanitation for both communities.

Present at the meeting were technocrats from the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and officials from Rwanda’s High Commission in Ghana.