Mr John Nkaw, Country Director of ActionAid Ghana, an international NGO, has called on the Government and other development partners to invest more resources into climate change adaptation to enhance livelihoods and build resilient communities.
He also called on the Government to redirect investments towards agroecology to enhance sustainable environment and food security.
Mr Nkaw made the call during a float campaign in Tamale dubbed: ‘Fund our Future.’
He said: ‘Government and other development partners such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank should prioritise channelling more of their resources into agricultural adaptation, whilst targeting smallholder farmers, including women, to build more robust and resilient communities.’
The Fund our Future campaign is a global initiative implemented by ActionAid in all its 45 affiliate countries across the world, which seeks to push financial institutions to cut funding from climate harming industrial agriculture and all fossil fuel projects.
Mr Nkaw noted that as part of the campaign strategy, African-led research had been conducted to trace the level of investments by the banks that went into financing fossil fuel exploration and industrial agribusinesses.
He indicated that the research findings had identified that over the last couple of years, banks had contributed about 370 billion dollars into the agribusiness sub-sector in Africa whilst fossil fuel exploration also contributed about 3.2 trillion dollars into petroleum exploration, which contributed towards the greenhouse gases that affected the ozone layer and the environment.
He called on banks to prioritise de-investing in the industrial agriculture sub-sector in ways that would help reduce environmental pollution.
The Tamale campaign brought together youth groups such as Activista-Ghana, Young Urban Women Movement and Small holder women farmer groups.
They held placards with inscriptions such as ‘Agroecology is a collective responsibility,’ ‘Enhanced biological activity, essential to soil health,’ ‘Agroecology contributes to food and nutrition security,’ among others, seeking to draw attention to issues of climate change adaptation and their repercussions on community development.
Miss Aisha Mohammed, Vice – Chairperson of Young Urban Women Movement, called on women and other vulnerable groups in the country to champion advocacy and awareness creation on climate change, adding, its impact directly affected most vulnerable groups.
Participants later signed a petition to register their commitment towards protecting and safeguarding the environment.
Source: Ghana News Agency