The Executive Secretary for Partner in Participatory Development (PAPADEV), has called for a better coordination among agencies responsible for managing Ghana’s natural environment to ensure the sustainable utilisation of its natural resources.
He said when Ghana’s natural resources were managed properly, it would help create a viable force to conserve and sustainably utilise the countries’ natural resource base for sustainable development.
Speaking at the opening of a one- day Global Environment Facility (GEF) small funds stakeholders meeting in the Bole District on February 01, 2022, Mr. E. M. Telly, the Executive Secretary of PAPADEV, stated that Ghana also needed to develop good scientific data and a strong institutional capacity and commitment through public private partnership towards a more sustainable environment.
He said Ghana, like all other Africa countries, needed biodiversity-friendly policies for socio-economic transformation, adding that: “The continuous exploitation of our rich natural resources over the years has contributed to the loss of ecological integrity and compromised the ability of the ecosystem to sustainably support the life of many local communities in particular and in general to support economies for sustainable development”.
Established on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, to help tackle the planet’s most pressing environmental problems, the GEF has since provided grants for financing for more community projects.
Mr .Telly, said the meeting of the stakeholders under the GEF- small fund at this period, was very critical since climate change issues had become a global phenomenon that was also challenging mankind’s survival and the earth’s sustainability.
He said Ghana was also facing serious environmental challenges as climate change was having its toll on the country, with most parts of the Savannah region recording increasing deforestation, cutting of Shea and “dawadawa” trees for charcoal burning, bush burning, land degradation and slash and burn method of farming.
The Program funded by the United Nations Development Programe (UNDP), funds projects that enable community to enhance or conserve their environment.
The overall goal of the project seeks to enhancing sustainable community landscape management with focus on sacred groves/ sites for biodiversity conservation and alternative livelihoods in Kiape and Jentilpe communities.
The Executive Secretary said that the projects are aimed at improving the global environment through the provision of grants for projects related to biodiversity and climate change.
He explained that the purpose of the meeting was, therefore, to keep stakeholders abreast of GEF strategies, policies and procedures and to encourage coordinating, interacting and to discuss priority issues.
It was also to help share lessons and experiences from the development and implementation of GEF- small funds projects and their integration within the beneficiary communities.
The two communities Kiape and Jentilpe in the Bole and Sawla-Tuna-Kalba Districts respectively will be educated together with school children on landscape degradation, support women households in small business management, adopt improved or clean woodfuel stoves production for commercial and household communities.
The project also seeks to train and support 40 beneficiaries (60%) women in beekeeping and organic honey production, training women in African star and tamarind fruit juice processing and packaging materials and provide improve breeds of male sheep and goats to improve the stock of livestock farmers in the two communities.
Mr.Telly, therefore, urged the beneficiary communities to strive to spend resources in a more efficient way in helping sustain the environment through restoration of degraded areas.
Source: yagbonradioonline
