Building Climate Resilience of the Agriculture Sector in Ghana Through Improved Climate Information and Early Warning Services
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Building climate resilience of the agriculture sector in Ghana through improved climate information and early warning services | Ghana UNEP 29 May 2019 Building climate resilience of the agriculture sector in Ghana through Project/Programme Title: improved climate information and early warning services. Country(ies): The Republic of Ghana National Designated Mr. Frimpong Kwateng-Amaning, Director of the Real Sector, Authority(ies) (NDA): Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Ghana Water Resources Commission of the Ministry of Sanitation and Executing Entities: Water Resources (MoSWR) and UNEP-DHI Centre on Water and Environment Accredited Entity(ies) (AE): UN Environment Programme Date of first submission/ [YYYY-MM-DD] [V.0] version number: Date of current submission/ [YYYY-MM-DD] [V.0] version number Please submit the completed form to [email protected], using the following name convention in the subject line and file name: “CN-[Accredited Entity or Country]-YYYYMMDD” Simplified Approval Process CONCEPT NOTE Template V.1.1 GREEN CLIMATE FUND | PAGE 1 OF 4 A. Project / Programme Information (max. 1 page) ☒ Project A.2. Public or private ☒ Public sector A.1. Project or programme ☐ sector ☐ Programme Private sector Mitigation: Reduced emissions from: ☐ Energy access and power generation ☐ Low emission transport ☐ Buildings, cities and industries and appliances A.3. Indicate the result ☐ Forestry and land use areas for the Adaptation: Increased resilience of: project/programme ☒ Most vulnerable people and communities ☒ Health and well-being, and food and water security ☐ Infrastructure and built environment ☐ Ecosystem and ecosystem services Direct beneficiaries: 2,700,000 people or 9% of the population A.5. Estimated (crop farmers). A.4. Estimated mitigation adaptation impact Indirect beneficiaries: impact (tCO2eq over (number of direct 14,700,000 people lifespan) beneficiaries and % of (crop farming population) households). Calculation is provided in Annex 11. A.7. Indicative GCF A.6. Indicative total project Amount: USD11,000,000 Amount: USD funding requested (max cost (GCF + co-finance) 10,000,000 10M) A.8. Mark the type of financial instrument ☒ Grant ☐ Loan ☐ Guarantee Other: specify___________________ requested for the GCF funding a) 4 years A.9. Estimated duration of A.10. Estimated project/ 10 years project/ programme: b) repayment period, if Programme lifespan applicable: A.11. Is funding from the A.12. Confirm overall Yes ☐ No ☒ Project Preparation ESS category is ☒ C or I-3 Facility needed? minimum to no risk1 Project activities are designed to build resilience of the agricultural sector and vulnerable communities to climate change by: i) Putting in place a national framework for clearly defining responsibilities for long term planning and proactive measures to combat future drought events in Ghana, and coordinating national, regional 2 and local drought management in the agricultural sector; ii) Transforming the technical capacity of A.13. Provide rational for policymakers, technical officers and identified responsible organisations for proactive the ESS categorization drought management and response through better observation, modelling and prediction (100 words) tools; iii) Building resilience of vulnerable farming communities to the impacts of climate change and drought hazards by disseminating the decision-support (DSS) services across multiple levels – from national to local. Consequently, the project will pose little to no environmental or social risk, as evident in the GCF ESS screening checklist (Annex 1). Furthermore, the project does not trigger any of the exclusion criteria stipulated in the GCF SAP guidelines. A.14. Has the CN been ☐ Confidential Yes ☒ No ☐ A.15. Confidentiality3 shared with the NDA? ☒ Not confidential A.16. Project/Programme Agricultural production in Ghana is threatened by multiple impacts of climate change, rationale, objectives and including rising temperatures, increasing frequency and intensity of droughts, occasional 1 Refer to the SAP ESS Guidelines 2 ‘Regional’ in this concept note and annexes refers to a sub-national level 3 Concept notes (or sections of) not marked as confidential may be published in accordance with the Information Disclosure Policy (Decision B.12/35) and the Review of the Initial Proposal Approval Process (Decision B.17/18). Simplified Approval Process CONCEPT NOTE Template V.1.1 GREEN CLIMATE FUND | PAGE 2 OF 4 approach of flash floods, and changing seasonal patterns. Baseline assessments show that the programme/project (max current capacity for proactive management, planning and response to climate-related 100 words) hazards, especially droughts, is very low. The proposed project will build on GCF readiness programme activities to elicit a paradigm shift in Ghana’s national and local approach to drought hazard management in the agricultural sector from that of reactive to proactive, building resilience to climate change and increasing food security especially in vulnerable communities. This will be achieved by focusing on building the institutional and technical capacities for planning, early warning and response to climate-related drought hazards in the agricultural sector at a national and local level through: i) Creating the necessary national institutional, policy and planning frameworks for coordinated planning and response; ii) Transforming the technical capacity for observation, modelling and prediction of drought impacts on agriculture; iii) Building the local capacity to use new climate information and decision support services for improved resilience of farmers and increased food security in vulnerable communities. The project will focus on drought in the agricultural sector which has the greatest need for a proactive approach, and will also include the capacity for future application to other sectors and climate-related hazards such as flooding. The project will be executed by the Water Resources Commission and the UNEP-DHI Collaboration Centre. Any environmental and social risks will be managed by the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources. B. Project / Programme details (max. 3 pages) B.1. Context and Baseline (max. 1 page) Country context and climate vulnerabilities: Rural Ghanaian communities are highly reliant on favourable climate conditions and climate-sensitive livelihoods. More than 80% of disasters in Ghana are considered to be climate-related4. Smallholder farmers are amongst the poorest groups of the society4, yet account for 80% of domestic agricultural production5. Most farmers have a low adaptive capacity, making them vulnerable to current and future climate change impacts. Despite the rapid development and growth in the industry and service sectors in recent years, agriculture remains a significant contributor to the Ghanaian economy, and accounted for ~18% of GDP in 20176. The agriculture sector – employing ~36% of the active labour force7 and contributing to the livelihoods of ~70% of the total population8 – is also considered a potential ‘engine of growth and jobs creation’ for a diversified Ghanaian economy9. However, climate change poses serious threats to the sector in the future, impacting water resources, agricultural productivity and food security, and threatening the livelihoods of rural communities. The Ghanaian climate has changed considerably in recent decades, a trend expected to continue over the next century. Average annual temperatures have increased by ~1 ̊C since the 1950s10, and while there has been little change in mean annual rainfall, increasing rainfall variability has led to an increase in the frequency and intensity of flood and drought events in recent history. Since the 1950s West Africa has experienced trends towards more intense and longer droughts11. Historic records over floods and droughts between 1968 – 2017 shows 18 major events with an average of 540,000 people affected annually, and Drought Disaster Statistics show that in 1983 severe drought affected 12.5 million people in Ghana12. Farmers are extremely vulnerable to droughts, as nearly all farming depends on rainfed agriculture. Less than 1% of cultivated land is under irrigation in Ghana13. Climate impacts are particularly damaging to vulnerable groups, including women that produce 70% of country’s subsistence crops and account for 52% of labour force4. Future climate projections suggest that such extreme events will become more frequent and intense in the coming decades, with dry season rainfall decreasing, the dry season lengthening and wet season rainfall intensifying. Temperatures in Africa are projected to rise faster than the global average increase during the 21st century. Under current IPCC future scenarios14, temperature projections over West Africa for the end of the 21st century from both the CMIP3 GCMs (SRES A2 and A1B scenarios) and CMIP5 GCMs (Representative Concentration Pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) range between 3°C and 6°C above the late 20th century baseline, and regional downscaling produces a 4 https://www.ifad.org/web/operations/country/id/ghana 5 National Climate Change Policy (NCCP), 2013 6 CIA World Factbook. 2018. Available at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html 7 Ghana Statistical Services. 2017. Labour Force Report. 8 ISSER. 2017. Policy Brief 5 - Post-Budget Analysis: Sowing the seeds for Growth and Jobs. 9 World Bank. 2018. Third Ghana Economic Update: agriculture as an engine of growth and jobs creation. Washington D.C. 10 Data are from: http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportal/index.cfm.