By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MESTI) with support from the World Bank, have launched the Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project (GLRSSMP).
The project seeks to strengthen the integration of the country’s natural resources and its management to increase the benefits to communities in targeted savannah and cocoa forest landscapes.
It will also support sustainable land, water, and forest management initiatives in climate-vulnerable target landscapes and support the formalization of small-scale mining.
The GLRSSMP geographically targets two landscapes: the Northern Savannah Zone (including the Guinea Savannah ecological zone, the Sudan Savannah ecological zone, and the upper portions of the Transitional ecological zone); the cocoa forest landscape (including parts of the Forest ecological zone and the Pra River Basin).
The project will include a multi-sector approach to land management.
In August 2021, the World Bank approved $103.4 million to implement GLRSSMP. The financing includes an International Development Association (IDA) credit of $75 million and $28.4 million in grants from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the Extractive Global Programmatic Support (EGPS), and the Global Partnership for Sustainable and Resilient Landscapes Multi-Donor Trust Fund (PROGREEN).
The GLRSSMP will capitalize on land-use planning for integrated landscape management to:
• optimize land use
• formalize artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) for sustainable mining
• restore degraded lands
• promote sustainable agricultural practices, and
• strengthen sustainable management of forest landscapes for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services.
The project will help develop healthy ecosystems that can play an essential role in mitigation, adaptation, and resilience to climate change. This will positively affect the cocoa industry and increase its impact on the country’s GDP.