Ghana

National Focal Point

• Environmental Protection Agency

National Strategic Documents and Timeframe

• NDC: 2021 – 2030
• Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda II
• National Climate Change Policy
• Low Carbon Development Strategy

National Institutional Arrangements

Ghana’s NDC is anchored in the anticipated 40-year long-term development, the GSGDA II, National Climate Change Policy as well as the Low Carbon Development Strategy. The NDC provides that many national policies, laws and regulations will support its implementation.

The NDC states that its proposed measures will build on existing measures and strategies, and that existing legal frameworks will have to be revised accordingly. Such revisions are subject to approval by Ghana’s Parliament.

Priorities and Needs

The NDC identifies the following sectors as being vulnerable to climate change and in need of adaptation actions being implemented:

• Agriculture and food security
• Sustainable forest resource management
• Resilient infrastructure in build environment
• Health
• Water resources
• Gender and the vulnerable

Current and Planned Adaptation Efforts

Ghana’s NDC outlines the following priority adaptation policy actions to be implemented, and lists the programme of actions for each:

Agriculture resilience building in climate vulnerable landscapes:

• Modified community-based conservation agriculture adopted in 43 administrative districts.
• Scale up penetration of climate smart technologies to increase livestock and fisheries productivity by 10%.
• Promote innovations in post-harvest storage and food processing and forest products in 43 administrative districts.

Value addition-based utilization of forest resources:

• Governance reform for utilization of forest resources for sustainable energy use and biodiversity business.
• Manage 413,000ha fragile, ecologically sensitive and culturally significant sites in 22 administrative district in the forest and savannah areas.

City-wide resilient infrastructure planning:

• Building standards for strategic infrastructure in housing, transport, coastal, waste management, telecommunication and energy) adopted in 10 urban administrative regions.

Early warning and disaster prevention:

• Expand and modernize the current 22 synoptic stations based on needs assessment, and increase the number to 50 stations for efficient weather information management

Managing climate-induced health risks:

• Strengthen climate related disease surveillance in vulnerable communities in 3 Districts.
• Adopt climate change informed health information systems including traditional knowledge on health risk management.

Integrated water resources management:

• Strengthen equitable distribution and access to water for 20% of the population living in climate change risk communities.

Resilience for Gender and the Vulnerable:

• Implementation of community led adaptation and livelihood diversification for vulnerable groups

Synergies with Disaster Risk Reduction Efforts

Ghana’s NDC includes early warning and disaster prevention as one of its adaptation policy actions. This will involve expanding and modernizing the current 22 synoptic stations based on needs assessment, and increasing the number to 50 stations for efficient weather information management. It also includes city-wide resilient infrastructure planning as an adaptation action.

Requirements for Additional Planning, Financial and Technical Capacities

Ghana’s NDC includes a section on means of implementation, which provides that investment of USD 12.79 billion will be required for adaptation. Ghana will mobilize USD 4.21 billion (34%) at the national level and the remaining USD 8.29 billion is the international contribution Ghana is looking for in order to meet the cost of implementing its adaptation actions.

The NDC also sets out that Ghana will be looking for international partnerships to take advantage of the opportunities for technology development and transfer and continuous up-skilling especially in the priority INDC sectors.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The NDC states that Ghana recognizes that a Monitoring, Report and Verification (MRV) system is the cornerstone to ensure the successful implementation of its NDC actions. It provides that Ghana’s MRV system will build on the existing national development monitoring and evaluation structures which incorporate sector-based periodic information review through an Annual Progress Report system. The MRV system will be deployed to track progress towards achieving INDC goals as well as any modifications in the priority policy actions that will be implemented to attain the NDC goals as well as any modifications in the priority policy actions that will be implemented to attain the NDC goals that have been put forward.