AMA boss, two others nominated for African Mayor Awards
The Chief Executive of the Accra metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Mr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, and two other African mayors have been nominated in the Large Cities category for the Jose Eduardo dos Santos African Mayor Awards.
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The other two are the mayors of Cape Town and Dakar, Madam Patricia de Lille and Mr Khalifa Sall Ababaca respectively.
The Jose Eduardo dos Santos African Mayors Award was established to raise the profile of Africa’s mayors by honouring those who have made an outstanding contribution to their communities and developed a vision for urban living, working and travelling across Africa.
Date of award
The grand award ceremony, scheduled for April 30, 2015 in Luanda, Angola, will be under the patronage of Angola’s President, Mr Jose Eduado dos Santos.
The ceremony will be held in conjunction with the Second Africa Urban Infrastructure Investment Forum that takes place from April 29-30.
A release from the organisers stated that the winner of the award would take home US$200,000.
Panel
The selection of the winners was done by an expert panel of judges. The release named members of the panel as the Secretary-General of the United Cities and Local Governments-Africa (UCLGA), Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi; the Chairman of the African Union of Architects, Tokunbo Omisore; the Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for UN-Habitat, Aisa Kirabo Kacyira; the Chairman of the Angolan Architects Union, Mr Victor Leonel Miguel, and the Chair, Construction Industry Sector of Mauritius.
Categories
The release said the award was in three categories and named them as Large Cities, Medium-sized Cities and Small Cities.
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It indicated that for a city to be under the category of large cities, its population should be one million or more, while those under the medium-sized cities should have a population of more than 200,000. To qualify under the small cities category, a city should have a population of up to 200,000.
The release said the nominees for the other two categories were yet to be published and said the winner of the medium-sized cities would receive US$100,000, while the winner of the small cities would take away US$50,000.
Criteria
In his remarks during the selection process, Mr Jean-Pierre Elong Mbassi, said, “The competitiveness of national economies is more and more dependent on the competitiveness and efficacy of the local and regional economies that are driven by cities of different natures and size. A new paradigm of development gives a particular role to cities and local authorities as the transformation locus and agent of African societies. From now on, cities of Africa should take the lead in shaping the future of the continent.”
Why Accra Mayor Was Shortlisted
Mr Vanderpuije has achieved significant feats in his administration, notable among which have earned him his new position as the President of Global Alliance of Mayors and Mayors of Africans and African Descent.
It is notable that the AMA under Mr Vanderpuije has been able to establish sister relationships with South Carolina, USA and Saunas in Turkey, which systems are being replicated in Ghana while the declaration of Accra as a “Millennium City” on January 15, 2010 by the Earth Institute of Colombian University, New York, USA was under his reign.
The city of Accra was also nominated as one of five other cities with high scores in sanitation and environmental management by the UN climate change conference in South Africa held in 2012 and also the fourth out of the 46 places the New York Times recommended for business and tourist destination in 2013. In January 2013 Accra was also declared as the African city with the highest growth prospect by global payment leader MasterCard.