By: Joyce Gyekye
Ghana is validating a standalone communication response to climate change adaptation. Known as Adaptation Communication, Adcom, the document will be presented to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change, UNFCCC during the COP 26 in Glasgow.
It highlights national efforts towards adaptation in the country. This is different from the adaptation communication in the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions, NDC’s and that of the National Climate Change Adaptation strategy.
At a programme in Accra to validate the draft copy, a Deputy Director, Climate Vulnerabilities and Adaptation at the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Dr. Antwi-Boasiako Amoah said the importance of the document is to, “raise the profile of adaptation at the international level to solicit funds to address climate change in the country’’.
Getting key stakeholders that are part of the adaptation network to be part of the work in Ghana is another reason for presenting the Adcom at the international level.
Dr. Antwi Boasiako Amoah said the document will be launched locally before the year ends to enable stakeholders to understand what has been done and the key issues ahead.
A Deputy Executive Director, Technical Services of the EPA, Ebenezer Apaah-Sampong said the agency has done so much work on adaptation to climate change but putting them out at the needed platforms has been a challenge and therefore commended stakeholders for their input.
Consultant to the project, Dr. Bob Manteaw at the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainable Development at the University of Ghana said the document, “made use of the country’s short, medium to long term adaptation priorities, policies, goals and actions”.
It focused on the National Adaptation Planning, its institutional arrangements among others.
Dr. Manteaw noted that a whole section was devoted to gender responsive adaptation action and the role of traditional and local knowledge systems in adaptation planning in diverse contexts.
The document was funded by the International Institute for Sustainable Development of the UK.
