Accra: Citizens from the West Africa Coastal Area Resilience Project (WACA ResIP) 2 beneficiary communities and members of the Coastal CSOs Forum (CCF) have urged the government to reactivate the project, warning that delays will worsen erosion and destroy livelihoods.
According to Ghana News Agency, Ghana joined WACA ResIP 2 in 2022, with plans to implement it over a five-year period from 2023 to 2027. The project was launched in 2024 as part of a regional initiative for coastal resilience in collaboration with The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. The first phase benefited other countries like Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, and Togo.
Ghana planned to use financial support totaling $155 million, consisting of both a grant and a loan, to pilot coastal resilience intervention projects in the Volta and Greater Accra regions. These regions were identified as the main hotspots for the first phase of the Ghana WACA intervention.
In a petition to President John Dramani Mahama, signed by Mr. Vance Kwaku Adedze, Secretary of the CCF Sub-National Working Group - Volta Region, and shared with the Ghana News Agency, the group appealed to the president to remove institutional bottlenecks stalling the project. They referred to the WACA project as a 'game changer' for coastal districts in Volta and Greater Accra regions, which are severely affected by tidal waves, flooding, and pollution.
The petition emphasized the project's significance to citizens during the 2024 Anlo Hogbetsotso Festival and called for broad community involvement. It also proposed organizing a chiefs' learning tour to Togo and Benin to draw lessons from their Phase 1 implementation.
However, WACA ReSIP 2 has been stalled since 2025, a situation the petition described as 'breaking the neck of the coastal populations and districts whose aspirations of respite is in the wind currently.' While acknowledging government efforts towards building sea defence works in the Volta Region's Ketu South, the petition insisted that these ongoing works, known as Blekusu Phase II, should complement WACA ReSIP 2, not replace it.
The petition warned that discontinuing WACA would be too costly, as the frequency and destructiveness of tidal waves threaten to wipe out sections of populations and communities, rendering their sacrifices untenable.