Environmental advocacy group calling itself the Northern Ghana Civil Society Organizations Coalition on Green Climate Fund has built the capacities of its membership on climate change with focused attention on the Green Climate Change Fund (GCF) projects in Ghana aimed at deepening awareness about its implementation processes so as to inform them on their roles as well as to help influence the initiatives towards full realization of benefits of the people and communities.
The 2-day workshop which took place on 22nd & 23rd August, 2022 at the Gariba Lodge in Tamale was organized by the Care International Ghana with support from Kasa Initiative Ghana under the second phase of a Green Climate Fund readiness project in Ghana (2021-2022) funded by Care Germany and facilitated by Germanwatch.
Addressing the participants, Head of Programs at Care International Ghana, Mr. Zakaria Yakubu observed the workshop forms part of the processes helping to understand the workings of the Green Climate Fund in Ghana, which projects are currently being funded and what roles are being played by Civil Society Organizations as citizens particularly within the Northern Ghana to ensure that the projects are implemented effectively and efficiently to achieve its objectives.
He further noted that the move is geared towards strengthening the knowledge and capacities of CSOs on evidence-based advocacy around climate change with focused attention on the Green Climate Funded Projects in the country particularly the Ghana Shear Landscape Emission Reduction Project (GSLERP), a major project being implemented in the Northern Ghana.
“We want to appraise ourselves about what the GSLERP about in the Northern Ghana, what’s happening on the ground and what role we can play based on the knowledge acquired from the advocacy on the GSLERP”.
The participants made up of representatives of various civil society organizations and media practitioners drawn from the northern sector who are members of the Coalition were vigorously enlightened on how advocacy can be used as a tool to drive change towards the successful implementation of the GSLERP.
They were also given a brief on updates on the GSLERP implementation in Ghana as well as review on Gender Action Plans of related GCF projects under implementation with focus on GSLERP GAP.
They were also meant to undergo an exercise which saw the creation of a scorecard to aid monitoring of actions and reporting on the Ghana Shear Landscape Emission Reduction Project.
Mr. Kanton Salifu Issifu, the Executive Director of Community Development Alliance (NGO) who facilitated the training on evidence-based advocacy for CSOs charges the participants to be steadfast in their demands and always endeavor to utilize the advocacy approaches and strategies at their disposals as tools to persuade decision makers to act in order to support their issues towards realization of the desired goals.
For his part, the Coordinator of Kasa Initiative Ghana, Mr. Jonathan Gokah recounting on the devastating effect of climate change on Ghana appealed to the participants to commit themselves to participatory monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the GSLERP in communities and provide adequate and timely feedback to engender accountability and transparency of national authorities and implementing actors of GCF activities.
By Joseph Wemakor