Urban planning and public policy responses to the management of COVID-19 in Ghana

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ABSTRACT

The global COVID-19 pandemic, with its associated issues of isolation, enhanced hygiene practices and contact tracing brought up a number of issues to the public domain, many of which bordered on the nexus between urban planning and public health. This paper sets out to examine how new ideas concerning the linkages between urban planning and public health revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic can be integrated into practice, moving forward; and how we might leverage on the crisis to build more just, healthier and liveable cities. Through a review of the literature on public policy responses to pandemics, it is observed that the current urban planning system in Ghana leaves so many people behind and exposes the lives of many to current and future disease pandemics. We propose an agenda for transformation which revolves around the co-evolution and co-creation of new forms of societal values that are less materialistic and individualistic but rather more egalitarian.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• pandemics
• urban Planning
• public Policy
• public Health

This article is related to:

Research for city practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received for this research.

Notes on contributors

David Anaafo

David Anaafo is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Planning and Sustainability, University of Energy and Natural Resources. His research interests span sustainable property and pro-poor land policy, decentralisation and local governance and urban planning in mid-sized growth and transition cities.

Ebenezer Owusu-Addo

Ebenezer Owusu-Addo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Bureau of Integrated Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. His research interests include the interface between urban planning and public health, social determinants of health, poverty and health equity, and rural health systems.

Stephen Appiah Takyi

Stephen Appiah Takyi is a Lecturer at the Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Stephen’s research interest is in the area of environmental planning and his current research focuses on the environmental impact of cocoa production, payment options for green spaces in Ghana, urbanizing with nature and urban agriculture in the sustainability discourse.