The Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), has secured a grant of 15 million dollars from the Department for International Development (DFID) to develop a Millennium Development Village (MDV). The Government of Ghana would add three million dollars to the grant for the implementation of the project. Alhaji Gilbert Seidu Iddi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SADA, announced these at a seminar held on SADA by the Upper East Students Union (UPESU), of the University for Development Studies (UDS) on the theme: “Prospects and Opportunities, Entrepreneurship on SADA for Students”, in Tamale. He said the MDV was to be located in parts of the West Mamprusi District of the Northern Region and the South Builsa District in the Upper East Region, where a number of communities would be selected to constitute a cluster of villages of a population of 30,000 to benefit from the project. Alhaji Seidu said the project, expected to commence in January next year, sought to work with the communities towards the achievement of all the eight Millennium Development Goals. He said SADA had initiated a sustainable housing project at Malzeri in the Yendi Municipality in the Northern Region with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) committing 500 dollars to the project with SADA providing counterpart funding of GHc 2.5 million. Alhaji Iddi said SADA had received its first grant of 1.5 million dollars from the Chinese Government for the purchase of agriculture machinery. The CEO of SADA said, in view of all these developments, it would be wrong for anyone to say the Authority was only engaging in organizing seminars and not doing anything concrete on the ground. He said SADA was all along implementing its immediate attainable objectives within the larger framework of its long term goals, which had duration of over 20 years. Alhaji Iddi reminded critics of SADA to take nor that the programme was a process and not an event and that there was the need for constant consultations to make such a big programme a success. Mr Yakubu Mohammed Saani, Deputy Country Director of ActionAid-Ghana, urged officials of SADA to factor in the role of women in the implementation of their programmes and said” it is not about gender mainstreaming, it’s about them driving the agenda and taking key decisions on the programme”. He also asked SADA to pursue tailor made programmes to ensure the involvement of the vulnerable. Mr Kotochi Mohammed Clement, the Students Representative Council President of the UDS, Nyankpala campus, appealed to the authorities of SADA to consider establishing a research centre at one of the campuses of the university. He called on SADA to ensure that students of the university were the first beneficiaries of jobs that would be created through the programmes. Mr Asebilla Alfred Nyaapika, President of the UPESU, said the seminar was organized to enable the students better understand the activities of SADA and to learn of the prospects and entrepreneurial opportunities available to them.