Mr. Mohammed Alhassan Damba  is an Urban Planner with vast working experience in the private sector and the Civil Service of Ghana spanning a period of about 18 years. He holds a Masters Degree in Development Planning and Management (MSc, 2006) and Bachelors degree in Planning (BSc. 2002), all from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He also holds other certificates in the field of Urban Land Use Planning, Environmental Management and Project Management. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Institute of Planners and the President of the Institute, a position he has held since 2019. Since 2007, he has served in various executive positions of the Ghana Institute Planners (GIP) during which period he spearheaded a number of reforms in the areas of membership examination, membership certification, Continuing Professional Development training and institutional capacity development.

He has about 18 years of post-qualification experience in Urban Land Use and Spatial Planning and Management, including thirteen years of experience as a Lecturer in Development Studies at the Valley View University. He has provided technical support in a number of projects in urban planning and management, especially in relation to institutional reform for Town and Country Planning, transportation planning, land administration, aerotropolitan planning. He has also undertaken a number of short term consultancies in real estate planning, mixed use precinct development planning and sector and district development planning.

 He was part of the team that nurtured reforms leading to passage of the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority of Ghana and passage of the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016 (Act 925). He was a key member of the team that established structures for the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development in 2017 and headed the Policy Planning, Budgeting Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate of the Ministry until 2021. During this period, he played key roles in the establishment of the Zongo Development Fund, including passage of the Zongo Development Fund Act, 2017 (Act 964) and preparation of the Scheme of Service and recruitment of staff for the Fund. He also served on the Boards of the Tema Ashaiman Slum Upgrading Facility (2011-2018) and the Zongo Development Fund (2018-2020). Since 2020, he has been the Team Leader for the slum upgrading component of the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) Project in Ghana.

He is also an accomplished commercial planner with about 40 successful Planning Permit Applications to his credit. Mr. Alhassan has vast international experience studying and/or working in the Ghana, USA, Japan, China, Denmark, Brazil, South Korea and Malaysia.

E-mail: president@gip.org.gh | alha8@yahoo.com | +233 24 549 6917