It had as its theme “Trans­forming SCI Africa; honoring traditions, creating new partner­ships” and is expected to generate extraordinary opportunities for global, economic and sustainable development in Africa.

SCI, a non-profit organisation, created to help communities across the world to achieve the aspiration of fostering peace by building bonds between them, has over 500 member cities, counties and states in the USA currently partnering over 2,100 municipalities in 145 other coun­tries worldwide.

Opening the summit, the Vice-President, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, in tracing the history of SCI noted that while Sister City relationships had traditional­ly been developed for diplomatic, cultural or educational purposes, today’s economic climate required a growing need for cities to expand and leverage sister-city partnerships for economic devel­opment.

In a keynote address titled “Forging Stronger Partnership in Africa for Sustainable Economic Development through the Sister Cities Global Partnership” and read for him by Mr Augustine Collins Ntim, Deputy Minister of Local Government, Decentrali­sation and Rural Development, the Vice-President pointed out that unlike 50 years ago, “cities today operate and compete in a different world and thus drive the world economy”.

By the year 2030, he said, it is projected that global urban pop­ulation will reach 75 per cent and over 90 per cent of global GDP will result from urban activity.

Quoting Mckinsey’s research work indicating that one-third of the world’s GDP would come from just 100 cities, Dr Bawumia observed that “at the heart of this change is globalisation which is increasing trade flows between regions and is shifting econom­ic power towards the emerging economies of Africa, Asia and South America, or more accurate­ly the cities of these regions”.

“It is therefore evident that cit­ies are not only driving the global economy but also the engines of growth through productivity, innovation and job creation,” he stated.

The Vice-President indicated that sister cities generally focused on four main areas of collabora­tion and stressed that in moving forward however, all city leaders must be encouraged by such vital issues as Arts and Cultural Exchange, Business and Trade Development, Community and Humanitarian Development as well as Youth and Educational programs to develop a strong bond of global partnerships among cities.

“We are now living in the Ur­ban Age,” Dr Bawumia said, add­ing “cities are the most important unit of social and economic reproduction because they supply the most critical components in today’s globally connected eco­nomic system.”

The Vice-President also noted that global economic factors such as globalisation, urbanisation and digitalisation were opening up new markets, intensifying com­petition and adding new layers of complexity to global supply chains.

He therefore, urged city leaders to understand how global eco­nomic factors can affect the com­petitiveness of their cities and determine how their unique assets could service the impacts of globalisation in order to become beneficiaries of new trade flows, direct investments, job creation and innovation and remain an attractive proposition in a world economy.