Ghans spent GH¢14.5 billion ($3.15 billion) on various climate change interventions across the country from 2015 to 2020.
The amount which is from the national budget represents 3.94 per cent of the country’s total expenditure over the five-year period.
Principal Economics Officer of the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Foster Aboagye Gyamfi, disclosed this on Friday at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.
He made a presentation dubbed “Mobilising finance for climate action” at the Ghana Pavilion as part of the Finance Day; a side event that was dedicated to the finance aspect of the climate change fight.
“The money was spent by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies on various climate activities in their budget for the period. This may include leveraging additional funds and the climate action,” he explained.
Mr Gyamfi said key line climate-relevant line ministries like the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development; Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection; Ministry of Food and Agriculture; Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, committed more than 30 per cent of their total expenditure to climate change activities.
Agriculture and food security, according to him, attracted the highest allocation since 2015 (total budget allocation of GH¢ 453 million).
He said dedicating such a per cent of the country’s expenditure as a domestic source of climate financing showed the nation’s commitment to the global efforts to address the climate change impacts.
Mr Gyamfi noted that the country’s response to climate change was critical in achieving the long-term national development objectives for the nation as well as the global sustainable development goals.
He said Ghana’s updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the global climate change efforts was strongly aligned with the various national and sector policies and backed by concrete programmes that the MDA, MMDAs, private sector, and CSOs could implement to achieve them.
He said the country needed between $ 9.3 and $15.5 billion investment to implement the 47 NDC programmes from 2020 to 2030 out of which $ 3.9 billion would be required to implement the 16 unconditional programmes over the nine years.
He said $ 5.4 billion for the 31 conditional nationally determined contribution programmes would be mobilised from the public, international, and private sector sources and climate markets.
Touching on external sources of climate finance, Mr Gyamfi mentioned that the Green Climate Fund (GCF) had the 2020-2023 replenishment of $8 billion.
He said Ghana submitted 19 proposals to seek funding from the GCF and had since received $106.9 million for nine activities while nine others were awaiting approval.
He said the MoF was not only mobilising funds but had also developed a climate finance tracking system called CLIMFINTRACK and had also collaborated with UN Development Programme to undertake a climate public expenditure and institutional review study.
On the way forward in climate financing, Mr Gyamfi said the Ministry would explore more results-based financing options such as Environmental/Climate Impact Bonds and mobilise carbon finance at scale from the international carbon markets.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR, BACK FROM GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
