With United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) skills development, local governments poised for increased climate action in Ghana

Local government authorities are potentially powerful vectors for action on climate change, as they typically have a mandate to realise the small and medium-sized investments communities need to build resilience at the local level. The UN Capital Development Fund recently brought together representatives from 13 districts in Ghana to unlock that potential by identifying their training and capacity-building needs for the remainder of 2024.

The gathering, which wrapped up on 5th July 2024, assembled representatives from partners implementing the Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities and Ghana (GrEEn) and the Promoting Green and Climate Resilient Local Economies – Applying circular economy and climate-smart agriculture principles and solutions to local development pathways (LoCAL ACE) projects. This included the Ministry for Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development (MLGDRD), Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).

“Over two days, we took a deep dive on the needs of local government authorities in thirteen districts and developed a programme of training that meets their needs as they seek to strengthen their communities’ ability to adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change,” said Angela Yayra Kwashie, Technical Specialist, UNCDF who led the event in the capital Accra.

“UNCDF listens to community needs and develops solutions for driving finance to the ground level, where the impacts of climate change are felt most acutely.”

The GrEEn Project and LoCAL-ACE both apply UNCDF’s Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility, a mechanism for channeling finance to communities for locally led adaptation to climate change currently implanted or being designed for implementation in 38 countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific. Central to the LoCAL approach is the use of Performance Based Climate Resilience Grants, which ensure programming and verification of climate change expenditures at the local level and come with technical assistance and capacity-building including to local government authorities.

In Ghana, GrEEn is funded by the European Union with EUR 20 million with co-funding of EUR 600,000 from SNV Ghana (Royal Netherlands Embassy) and the UNCDF, while LoCAL-ACE is funded by the Government of Norway with a funding envelopment of $US 1.3 million.

At the end of the meeting from 4th – 5th July 2024, participants defined a series of training objectives for the remainder of 2024, including:

Agreeing on plans for the NDPC to revise planning guidelines to mainstream with circular economy and climate smart agriculture approaches
Tasking the Ghana Public Procurement Authority with conducting a follow-up session with sub-national government officials on sustainable procurement practices
Assigning the EPA to support with reviewing the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessments (CRVAs) developed with technical support from UNCDF for each of the participating 13 District Assemblies.
Agreeing that the EPA will also train District Assemblies in CRVA application and with capacity building on their use and for improved adaptation planning at the district level with the objective of mainstreaming adaptation planning, programming.

The partners meeting also gave an opportunity to further strengthen partnerships and collaboration among critical stakeholders, towards a common goal of an effective capacity building agenda for local government officials implementing LoCAL for 2024.

Find out more about the Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities and Ghana (GrEEn) and the Promoting Green and Climate Resilient Local Economies – Applying circular economy and climate-smart agriculture principles and solutions to local development pathways (LoCAL ACE) projects here

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).