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integrated into the plans of the regional coordinating councils and the district development
plans to provide a coherent and integrated approach to development planning.”
Thus, it is imperative that long-term planning be prioritized and undertaken, so that there is a successor to
the medium-term plan mentioned above.
Ghana is currently developing a National Climate Change Committee, hosted by the Ministry of
Environment, Science and Technology, which published a discussion paper titled “Ghana Goes for Green
Growth” (GGfGG) 45 in November 2010.
In the paper, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana and Chair of Ghana’s
Environmental and Natural Resource Advisory Council states “We cannot allow climate change to pull us
back. The only way we can go forward, developmentally, is to address its impact and to seize any
opportunities it presents” 46 .
The GGfGG paper also quotes the Honourable Sherry Ayittey, Minister of Environment, Science and
Technology, as saying “Climate change is affecting Ghana’s economic output and livelihoods and is a threat
to our development prospects. This is now everybody’s business, and all stakeholders need to be part of the
response.”
The aim of the National Climate Change Policy Framework (NCCPF), which was set out in the consultation
paper, is “to ensure a climate-resilient and climate compatible economy while achieving sustainable
development and equitable low carbon economic growth for Ghana” 47 .
Thus, the NCCPF is aimed at the fulfilment of three main objectives, namely (a) low carbon growth, (b)
effective adaptation to climate change and (c) socio-economic development. The achievement of these
objectives builds upon seven systemic pillars that are needed to support climate change policy. These pillars
are reflected in Table 6.
Table 6: Climate change policy: supporting pillars.
Climate Change policy
supporting pillars
Governance and Coordination
Capacity Building
Research and Knowledge Management
Finance
International Cooperation
Communication
Monitoring and Reporting
Source: GGfGG, 2010
There is no shortage of resources that address the need to respond to climate change in Ghana. But as the
2010 ‘Ghana Goes for Green Growth’ report notes, “research on climate change in Ghana is often projectdriven,
short-term and uncoordinated” 48 .
As a response to those challenges and in line with the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), the EPA and the
National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) are facilitating a series of initiatives aimed at
mainstreaming climate change and disaster risk reduction in the overall development agenda. Several key
Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) initiatives have been undertaken with the aim of building the resilience of
communities to disasters, as reflected in Table 7.
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