A
national stakeholder consultation has taken off for Ghana to join the Great
Green Wall Initiative, a project with the goal of halting land degradation and
desertification in Africa.
Experts
from the African Union Commission will engage interest groups in Ghana,
including the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation
(MESTI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on modalities for the
country to get on board.
Since
2007, twelve African countries have been involved in the implementation of the
project to green the continent. These countries embark on projects to plant
millions of trees in addition to implementing other related projects to avert
desertification and land degradation.
The
initiative has adopted the rural development approach where community members
are sensitized to plant trees, manage them and practice agriculture on
rehabilitated lands to secure their livelihoods.
“This
programme came to build the resilience of the communities in the drylands of
Africa to climate change and the impacts of climate change,” said Dr. Elvis
Paul Tangem, Coordinator of the Great Green Wall Initiative at the African
Union Commission.
According
to him, climate change adaptation and mitigation have been at the heart of the
implementation of Great Green Wall initiative.
More
than 50 million hectares of land will be restored in ten years of
implementation, which will help sequester an estimated 250 million tons of
carbon.
In
Ghana, the three regions of the north will benefit from the project which will
impact on policy at the national level, Dr. Tangem told 3news.com on the
sidelines of the 15th TerrAfrica Executive Committee (TAEC) Meeting
in Nairobi, Kenya.
The
World Bank has already bumped close to $4.5billion into the project, which
serves as an international platform for implementation of Sustainable Water and
Land Management (SWLM) activities, with focus on the drylands of Africa.
The
metaphoric Great Green Wall will provide sustainable alternatives for millions
of young people considering migrating from poverty-stricken areas in Africa’s
Sahel region.
Ghana
has already been benefiting from the World Bank’s $1.1billion Sahel and West
Africa Program in support of the Great Green Wall.
Meanwhile,
Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are expected to replace Nigeria and Togo on the TerrAfrica
Executive Committee.
The
TerrAfrica programme currently gives support to 29 countries in sub-Saharan
Africa in policy and investments needed to address land degradation and
desertification.
In
Ghana, the programme has provided the opportunity to implement SLWM projects in
local communities.
By Kofi Adu Domfeh
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