By Joyce Gyekye
Ghana is racing against time to submit its revised Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs 3.0, to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by September, ahead of COP30 in Brazil. The revised document, which will be implemented from 2026 to 2030, will indicate how the country plans to address the impact of climate change in major sectors during that period.
At a workshop to update CSOs in agriculture on the sector’s contribution to the NDCs, a Deputy Director, Ministry of Food and Agriculture in charge of Environment, Land, and Water Management, Dr Kingsley Amoako, said the process, which should have started in March this year, only began last month. He attributed the delay to the change of government and the need to update new appointees on previous work to bring them in tune with the latest developments.
He criticised CSOs in the climate change space for working in silos, saying: “I think most CSOs have sat on the bench and talked so much, probably due to a lack of understanding of the dynamics involved in putting together a national document like the Nationally Determined Contributions.”
He spoke against the insistence by the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) on seeing agroecology as a standalone agricultural policy in promoting sustainable food production. Dr Amoako acknowledged the importance of agroecology but stated that “the principle will be captured with other interventions like climate-smart agriculture and Nature-Based Solutions as resilience-based interventions under the updated NDC 3.0″.
He said consultants have been engaged to help all sectors, including the Ministries of Energy and Green Transition, Transport, and Agriculture, to develop templates on how their NDCs respond to the SDGs and other national and international frameworks. He entreated CSOs to assist sector ministries with their contributions.
The Deputy Executive Director of CIKOD, Wilberforce Lartey, agreed with Dr Amoako’s suggestion to review the agricultural sector’s NDC texts to include agroecology as an adaptation strategy. “If we’re able to agree on the texts and get something on resilience, that will be great, but that is yet to be firmed up,” he added.
KASA Initiative Ghana, a Civil Society Organisation platform on natural resources and the environment, sponsored the dialogue with CIKOD. The Coordinator of KASA Initiative, Jonathan Goka, said CSOs in the energy sector have engaged the ministry with their contributions to the updated NDCs and are doing the same for the Ministry of Agriculture. He noted, “this will make it an inclusive document if that of CSOs are reflected in the national document.”
Previous NDCs did not capture the actions of CSOs, even though they contributed significantly to meeting the set targets, making it necessary to include them in the updated version. In view of this, the capacities of CSOs on environmental issues have been built, and those in the agricultural and energy sectors have submitted their contributions to the appropriate sectors.
