To understand the climate finance landscape in Ghana, the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), in partnership with APRI – Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI), a think tank based in Berlin, Germany, has engaged stakeholders from government agencies, green funding agencies and banks to examine the systems that underpin public finance delivery and implementation of climate financing in Ghana.
In Ghana, an estimated $9 billion to $ 15billion is required to implement the programme of actions in the revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), a climate action plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. The support pledged to Africa for climate finance by the world’s wealthiest economies is yet to materialise.
As of 2020, only $83 billion out of the $100 billion per annum commitment made for climate action by developed countries to developing countries had been met. Of this, only $20 billion was provided to Africa between 2016 and 2019.
Speaking at the event, the Executive Director at ACEP, Benjamin Boakye, indicated that there was a need to identify the gaps and tools required to build systems to attract climate financing and discuss both internal and external approaches of generating finance, and how to use these resources to solve climate issues.
According to Executive Director of APRI, Dr. Olumide Abimbola, it is important to have a very clear understanding of the experiences of Ghanaian stakeholders regarding climate finance.
“We need to have an empirical analysis of the gaps, both in terms of the amount coming into the country as well as in terms of the policy priorities of the Ghanaian government”, he said.
Stakeholders from the government agencies also reiterated the need for developed countries to redeem their commitment to provide finance towards climate actions. This was particularly important as Ghana needs adequate funding to meet its climate action targets it has highlighted in its revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.
The stakeholder engagement was carried out in the context of an ongoing research project on climate finance in Africa. This engagement helps ACEP and APRI build evidence on climate finance needs, perceptions, challenges, and pathways to solutions, and contribute to discussions before and during COP27 by providing empirical evidence to support negotiating positions around equity and fairness in accessing finance and effectiveness.
The study will be published at the end of October 2022, followed by a larger stakeholder workshop in Accra that details the results and communicate appropriate steps for Ghana to obtain the relevant funding for climate action.
