Professor Paul Yankson, member of the National Street Naming Technical Committee on Thursday observed that Ghana needs a good National Urban Policy to be able to develop properly. He said this when he presented a paper on the draft National Urban Policy at a validation workshop in Bolgatanga. The workshop was to validate a Draft on National Urban Policy which is to be formalised and sent to parliament for study before it is passed into law. Prof Yankson said the draft, when passed into law, would help ensure sustainable development of urban areas as many urban areas faced a lot of infrastructure development problems including housing, roads, water and electricity. It would improve, enforce legislation and standards on urban development and management and as well improve land development and land use mechanism, conduct physical development in compliance with appropriate planning , environmental and zoning regulations. The urban policy would also provide better framework for Municipal, District and Government agencies, private developers and civil society organizations to do proper planning. He said it would be difficult for Ghana to achieve its middle income status if it lacked proper urban policy to guide its urban development. Prof Yankson said if Ghana was able to come with a good urban Policy, it would help the MDAs and private developers to plan well in terms of layouts, good landscape, proper vegetation and good housing. Mr Mark Woyongo, the Upper East Regional Minister, said the country needed a comprehensive national urban policy viewing the fact that the population of the country was growing at a rate of 2.7 per cent whilst the urban growth stood at 4.4 per cent. He said it is estimated that Ghana would be hitting a population of 25 million in 2010 of which 50 per cent would be residing in urban areas. “Population characteristics like this without a comprehensive National Urban Policy are indeed quite worrisome to many a key policy maker,” he said. Source: GNA