By Yemi Olakitan
Ghana was announced as the second African nation after Mozambique to receive funding from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility of the World Bank.
For lowering 972 456 tons of carbon emissions between June and December 2019, the program’s first monitoring period, Ghana won $4.8 million (about R82 million). The World Bank’s Country Director for Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, Pierre Laporte, estimates that Ghana might get up to $50 million for its 10 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2024.
According to the nation’s Emission Reductions Payment Agreement (ERPA) with the World Bank, “this payment is the first of four to demonstrate possibilities for leveraging results-based payments for carbon credits.” Samuel Jinapor, Ghana’s Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, stated that separate validation and verification procedures were also in progress for the payment of the second tranche, which would cover the monitoring period from January 2020 to December 2021.
69% of the money made under the Ghana Cocoa Forest REDD+ Programme, GCFRP, a detailed plan included in the agreement, will go toward assisting regional communities taking part in emission reduction initiatives.
The funds “would strengthen Ghana’s REDD+ process for action to decrease deforestation and forest degradation,” Jinapor continued.
Communities are “creating their work plans in conjunction with partners to execute allocations from the fund,” according to Roselyn Fosuah Adjei, Director for Climate Change and Ghana’s REDD+ Coordinator.
Even while Ghana, the second-largest cocoa producer in the world, has substantial economic benefits from the crop, it is also one of the primary drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the nation.
The area, also known as the Cocoa Forest Landscape, is well-known for its extensive cocoa plantations and richness of wildlife.
The REDD+ programs Alto Molocue, Gile, Gurue, Ile, Maganja da Costa, Mocuba, Mocubela, Mulevala, and Pebane were implemented in Zambézia Province with the help of a 2021 payment to Mozambique of $6.4 million.
Out of a pool of 15 African nations participating in the program, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, and Ivory Coast have the greatest potential to convert conservation into financial gain. Mozambique and Ghana came in second and third, respectively.
The eldest signatories in the organization are DRC and Cameroon, whose Carbon Fund agreements were signed in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The payment program undergoes a demanding eight-stage process that includes evaluating key components and doing due diligence on the technical and programmatic facets of the numerous projects.
