Urban Fabric Initiatives under the sustainable cities: Tamale urban resilience project

The Call for Proposals is opened to organizations (international and national Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), Community Based Organizations, Civil Society Organizations (CSO)), and to consortiums formed by private companies and at least one CSO/NGO. This Call for Proposals aims to identify the UFI Operator to implement the Urban Fabric Initiative (UFI) in Tamale, Ghana, in close coordination with the MLGRD and TaMA.

The aim of UFIs is to deliver pilot facilities (sports fields, public spaces, community centers, etc.) ahead of an urban project, in order to improve the design and management solution of the final facilities. Already deployed in 9 countries (Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Liberia, Rwanda and Cameroon), they enable the testing of different uses and types of facilities, while strengthening citizen participation through an approach that puts residents at the heart of the design and management process.

The UFI targeted through this Call is the first initiative of this kind in Ghana, designed in the framework of the Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project). It will be implemented in close collaboration with local and central authorities. Interesting lessons from UFI will be incorporated more widely into Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project.

About the Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project:

The aim of the project is to improve the resilience to climate change and the living conditions of residents of three neighborhoods of Tamale.

The specific objectives are as follows: 

• Improve people’s resilience to floods and heat waves through the deployment of green public spaces and flood management infrastructure
• Support the operationalization of public policy of participatory governance at the local level for a sustainable and inclusive project
• Strengthen local governance capacity in the formulation and replication of resilient urban projects 

Planed over a period of 6 years, the project is structured into 4 components:

• Component 1: Investments to strengthen community resilience
  • Component 1.A: Green Roads
  • Component 1.B: Drainage infrastructure
  • Component 1.C: Green Public Spaces
  • Component 1.D: Bilpela Retention Pond Rehabilitation
• Component 2: Citizen Participation and co-construction of solutions through the Urban Fabric Initiative a Component implemented through this call for initiatives
• Component 3: Capacity Building of local authorities
• Component 4: Project management

Purpose of the UFI within the Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project

The UFI is designed as a component of the Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project operating as “a small project within a larger project”. 

While the larger project focuses on long-term and large-scale infrastructures, the UFI shall offer more immediate, smaller scale community-led interventions. UFI could “bridge the gap” between the Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project feasibility phase and the delivery of the infrastructure by:

• Implementing complementary facilities to the Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project: while UFI interventions align with larger project’s broader objective and can contribute to the resilience of the settlements, it can also address needs of the community that might not be prioritized in the project.
• Rapid and adaptable interventions: UFI shall implement smaller, quickly deployable projects like public spaces, playgrounds, or gathering spots, some of which might be removable and moved around to test different locations in the settlement, before and during larger project’s construction work. UFI projects often design their interventions to be flexible, allowing spaces to evolve as community needs and infrastructure demands change.
• Pursue the community engagement initiated by Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project: UFI shall place a heavy emphasis on engaging local residents in co-design, in using and testing the spaces and in the management of those spaces. It will be able to pursue and extend the dialogue with the citizen panels installed through Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project, and beyond, by also engaging with the local associations and CBOs to create liveliness on the UFI sites, as well as contribute to the local management of these sites.
• Learning & Testing: UFI shall help testing out facilities design and management solutions on a smaller scale, generating learning that Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project can later use for designing, maintaining and managing its larger infrastructure.

Geographical areas:

 The UFI shall implement activities in each of the 4 communities of Tutingli, Nalung, Bilpela and Lamakara, targeted by the Sustainable Cities:  Tamale Urban Resilience Project.

Sectors of activity concerned:

Urban Fabric Initiatives (UFI) deploy approaches that lie at the intersection of participatory urban planning and design thinking. They actively engage local residents, supported by a multidisciplinary team, to iteratively co-create public spaces that better reflect the needs of users. Their work covers a broad scope of public space interventions, ranging from pedestrian pathways and green spaces to sports facilities, sanitation infrastructure, and waste collection systems.

In the long term, UFIs aim to transform the methods used in urban projects toward greater participation, agility, improved governance with civil society, and stronger consideration of residents’ needs — both in the design and management of public facilities. Below are some examples of projects that have emerged from past Urban Fabric Initiatives:

• Development of temporary sports facilities in anticipation of permanent infrastructure;
• Construction of a multi-purpose hall designed to bioclimatic standards for community activities;
• Organization and facilitation of cultural and artistic events in a public space dedicated to a future cultural facility;
• Design of multi-use green spaces (such as a community-designed fitness trail, temporary recreational gardens built with recycled materials, and spaces combining economic and recreational functions);
• Development of multifunctional public areas, including sports fields, shaded social spaces, sanitation facilities, and commercially oriented kiosks;
• Installation of waste management and recycling infrastructure.

The expertise required in this call for proposals includes: urban or multi-stakeholder project management, social and community engagement, co-design and user-centered design, architecture, and civil engineering.

Available Budget:

A budget of EUR 1 300 000 is dedicated to this UFI project and will be granted to one proposal only; this amount can cover 100% of the UFI budget, including taxes. 

Project Duration:

The UFI shall be implemented in a maximum period of 36 months.

Agenda:

• Launch of the Call for Proposals: July 10^th, 2025.
• Closing date for requests for clarification: September 8^th, 2025, 12:00 Accra time
• Closing of the Call: September 15^th, 2025, 12:00 AM, Accra time

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