Accra Floods: A national leadership test beyond Emergency Response

Accra’s flooding crisis is the cumulative consequence of inadequate drainage infrastructure, unregulated urban expansion, poor waste management, environmental degradation, construction on waterways, weak enforcement of planning regulations and the failure of institutions to uphold the public interest consistently.

This requires a long-term National Urban Renewal Programme for Accra that transcends political cycles and focuses on modern drainage and flood-control infrastructure, strict enforcement of planning and building regulations, protection of wetlands, waterways and natural drainage systems, improved waste management, stronger local government institutions and, where necessary, the humane relocation of settlements that have encroached on critical water channels.

The greater task is to address the decades of planning failures, weak enforcement, institutional deficiencies and poor urban management that have left Accra exposed.