The drain running through the neighborhoods of Nima East and Maamobi East has long been known across Accra as one of the city’s most environmentally challenged areas, posing numerous public health risks. Dilapidated housing lies dangerously close to the embankment’s crumbling edge, and the drain itself, a deep, ravine-like trench flanked by severely eroded dirt embankments, is chronically choked with solid waste, with many residents, lacking access to proper sanitation services, using it as their collective toilet.

In 2011, the Ministry of Water, Works and Housing commissioned the construction of drainage works, both to improve drainage capacity and to enable them to seal off the open drain, so that open defecation would cease. As part of the infrastructure work, the Department of Urban Roads of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), plans to build roads on both sides of the drain, creating the potential to improve access in both neighborhoods and to facilitate opportunities for street-side economic development.

In collaboration with the AMA, MCI conducted an in-depth scenario profile of the prospects and challenges for improved municipal service delivery and economic development that could arise from the envisioned drainage and road works. This profile presents findings from new GIS data; a rapid assessment of access to municipal services for households living along the drain; and an inventory of economic activities. Focus groups with residents, entrepreneurs, youth and women were also conducted. Our rapid assessment reflects that while access to electricity and solid waste management has gradually improved in recent years in the neighborhoods, improvements in access to water and to sanitation facilities in particular are urgently needed. The introduction of roads in these communities provides the opportunity to facilitate the expansion of water and sewerage infrastructure; our profile provides a spatial analysis of potential siting for such an expansion. A scenario guide, integrating perspectives from residents and entrepreneurs, is given here as well, to illustrate some of the prospects for mixed-use development, integrating commercial, residential and recreational land uses.

We are honored to have collaborated once more with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the AMA Mayor, the Honorable Alfred Vanderpuije. We are also very pleased to have worked closely together with Volunteers in Community Empowerment (VOiCE), a Nima-based youth group, in conducting the GIS mapping and focus group discussions in the neighborhoods. In this paper VOiCE’s leader, Ahmed “Shaban” Mustapha Yaajala, presents the findings from dialogues with residents about their own preferences for development along the drain area. Together with Shaban, the profile, now available on the MCI website, was created by urban planner and Accra MCI Program Manager Joe Melara, urban designer Kathy Kurtak and environmental scientist Abdul Rashid Alhassan.

MCI is hopeful that our latest community profile, incorporating our own maps, urban designs and research findings informed by the views and aspirations of both local government and local citizens, can assist the decision-making and investment process in upgrading the Nima-Maamobi drain area in ways that will uplift and empower Nima’s hard-working citizens and the community as a whole.

For more information regarding this multi-dimensional study and other Accra-related work carried out by MCI, please contact Joe Melara.