For two years, the Corona pandemic has severely slowed down personal contacts within the framework of Bonn's city and project partnerships. Now, Mayor Katja Dörner has been able to welcome guests in Bonn again. Her fellow mayor Ernest Arthur and his staff members Abdul-Razak Mac-Abubakar (Metropolitan Planning Officer) and Richmond Yeboah (Investor Relations and Press) from Cape Coast, Ghana, visited the Mayor in her office on Tuesday, May 31, 2022.
"I am very pleased to finally host another delegation from one of our sister cities. Cape Coast is making the start of what I hope will again be many personal encounters here," said the Mayor in her welcome address. A short exchange about the topical issues in Bonn and Cape Coast was followed by the signing of the guest book of the City of Bonn. The Mayor also invited the guests to the planned SDG conference of the twin cities in Bonn in September.
The visit takes place within the framework of the municipal exchange program Ghana - North Rhine-Westphalia, initiated by the State Chancellery of NRW within the framework of the state partnership of NRW with Ghana. The program is implemented by the Service Agency Communities in One World on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Delegations from five different cities in Ghana, which each are linked to cities in NRW, are in the state for a week. The program begins and ends with a joint workshop for all participants in Düsseldorf and includes three and a half days in each of the participating cities. During the week of the visit, further topics for future joint work will be identified and consideration will be given to how work can continue on the previous focal points of climate change, environmental education, biodiversity and waste management.
Bonn's partnership with Ghana
Bonn has maintained a partnership with Cape Coast in Ghana since the year 2008. It is Bonn's first partnership with a city in Africa. In 2012, an agreement to establish friendly relations was signed in Cape Coast by the mayors of the two cities at the time. As part of the partnership, the two municipalities are collaborating primarily on environmental and climate issues.
At the beginning of the partnership, the cities drew up a climate action program focusing on biodiversity, waste management, environmental education, sustainable tourism and local economic development. One of the central projects was the renaturation of Fosu Lagoon in Cape Coast. In 2015, an environmental education center was built on the shore of the lagoon.
Since 2020, Bonn has also participated in the NRW program "Municipal Exchange of Expertise Ghana - NRW" jointly organized by the State Chancellery of NRW and SKEW/Engagement Global. In 2021, the City of Bonn supported an analysis of waste generation in Cape Coast with expertise from Bonn Orange and initiated Cape Coast's participation in a project of the Bonn-based international city network ICLEI. Moreover, there was an exchange on disaster prevention between partners from Cape Coast and members of the Bonn Network for International Civil Protection and Disaster Risk Reduction. Numerous technical exchanges and delegation visits have also taken place to date.