The participants were encouraged to prioritise environmental and social impact issues as far as project management was concerned.

Prof Charles Amoatey, Director of Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) Training and Consulting, gave the advice in Accra at the end of a six-day training course on Essentials of Environmental and Social Risk Management.

The training, which is the sixth in a series, brought together 30 environmental officials from Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone to build their capacities in managing environmental and social risk issues.

The aim of the programme is to increase the capacity of environmental experts to manage
infrastructure projects in the country and within sub-Saharan Africa.

The course was jointly organised by the Regional Transport Research and Education Centre (TRECK), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in collaboration with the World Bank Group.

"We also want the participants to go back and share the knowledge with other staff on their projects, so that we can all be on the same page as far as knowledge on environmental and social issues is concerned," he said.
He charged them to champion the development of appropriate policies in their countries so that issues of environmental and social risk could be brought to the forefront in terms of policy discussions.

The Professor stressed that having legal backing would make sure that these issues were actually mainstream in the way projects were implemented.
He said since the inception of the training in November 2022, there had been positive strides in creating awareness of prioritising environmental and social impact before executing any development projects.

The programme has so far trained over 200 participants in all the Anglophone West African countries.

"We are very optimistic that in the next three or four years, we are going to see a lot more donor-funded projects, including government-funded projects, which have really addressed some of the environmental impacts," he said. Professor Helen Essandoh, Director of TRECK-KNUST, commended the participants for their efforts in contributing to the discourse.

"We believe you have upgraded your knowledge to make a positive impact in your countries," she said.

The participants expressed satisfaction about the course and pledged to be agents of change and implement the knowledge acquired in the implementation of project management.

The participants were presented with certificates.