In Pursuit of a Climate-Resilient Future, Ghanaian Stakeholders Co-Create Development ‘Pathways’

Stakeholders in Accra and Tamale worked in groups to propose development trajectories that combine adaptation and mitigation actions for the key economic sectors of agriculture, energy, water, forestry, and coastal systems.

To meet the significant and immediate threats posed by climate change to the economy, livelihoods, and well-being of all Ghanaians, stakeholders from Accra and the country’s northern regions met in Tamale and Accra on August 18/19 and 30, respectively, to develop sector-level interventions designed for a climate-resilient future. 

Brought together by the USAID Feed the Future (FTF) Ghana Policy LINK Activity, participants included contributing authors of Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), the national communication to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They worked alongside senior leaders from the agriculture, energy, water, forestry, and coastal systems sectors representing the Government of Ghana (GoG), development partners, civil society organizations (CSOs), research institutions and academia, the private sector, media, farmers, and vulnerable groups, including women and youth.

Workshop participants in Tamale pose for a group photo.

Initial Stakeholder Consultations

In preparation for the Tamale and Accra workshops, a broad range of stakeholders was engaged to discuss climate change evidence, impacts, adaptive capacities, current climate adaptation activities, and climate finance. Findings revealed the devastating effects of climate change and variability on critical economic sectors of Ghana, particularly those in the northern agricultural regions, where climate change is poised to limit future inclusive economic growth and reverse significant progress toward realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For example, SDG 2, which focuses on attaining food security through increased agricultural production, is already being negatively impacted by rising temperatures, a shift and narrowing of the rainfall window, and the increasing incidence of severe and frequent weather events, including floods and droughts. Meanwhile, rising temperatures are increasing water demand and reducing water availability through high evaporative losses. Rising temperatures are also increasing pest infestations, such as those of fall armyworm, and inducing wildfires in forest zones, threatening biodiversity. Energy security attainment, which corresponds to SDG 7, is also at stake, as unpredictable rainfall patterns reduce the potential for inexpensive hydropower generation to fuel industrialization and economic growth.

The transformative actions hinged on six factors, or accelerators: policies, plans, and strategies; technology and innovation; capacity strengthening; civic engagement and coordination; awareness and advocacy; and resource mobilization through climate finance.

Forging a Common Response

To effectively respond to these impacts, participants at the two workshops worked in groups to jointly develop sustainable and inclusive development trajectories that combine adaptation and mitigation actions for the key economic sectors of agriculture, energy, water, forestry, and coastal systems. These climate-resilient development pathways identified the current conditions and constraints to realizing that future, described what constitute high climate-resilient outcomes, outlined transformative actions that will accelerate sector performance, and identified the synergies and trade-offs of their sectors’ priorities with those of the other sectors. The transformative actions hinged on six factors, or accelerators: policies, plans, and strategies; technology and innovation; capacity strengthening; civic engagement and coordination; awareness and advocacy; and resource mobilization through climate finance.

The co-created, sector-specific climate-resilient development pathways will be the basis for the Ghana Policy LINK Activity’s joint planning to strengthen the policy process—from formulation through implementation—to achieve the common goal of a climate-resilient and sustainable future for all Ghanaians. These pathways will also support the realization of FTF program objective 2 to build the resilience of people and systems, highlighting the U.S. Government's commitments to mitigating the impacts of climate change.

Resources

To learn more about Policy LINK's work in Ghana, please visit policylinkglobal.org/ghana.