The projects, developed by the Energy Commission, Environmental Protection Agency/Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Forestry Commission, comprising Accelerating Solar Action Programme, Resilient Landscapes for Sustainable Livelihoods Programme and the Ghana Shea Landscapes REDD+ Project are under the GCF Readiness Programme.

They formed part of Ghana’s programmes to tackle climate change under Paris Climate Change Agreement which Ghana is a signatory and which enjoins signatory countries to initiate projects to combat climate change.

The Head of the National Designated Authority (NDA) for the GCF Resilient Programme, Mrs Adwoa Fraikue disclosed this at day’s workshop on the status of the GCF Readiness Programme for the Private Sector and the Media in Accra on Friday.

The GCF Readiness Programme, a two-year $988,000 programme being financed by the German government and is being implemented by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Resource Institute (WRI).

Mrs Fraikue said the NDA had submitted proposals to secure funding for the three projects, adding that $100 million of the funding from GCF was a grant and the remaining $210 million was a loan facility.

She was hopeful the money would be released by the middle of this year if the proposal for funding was approved by GCF.

Touching on the GCF Readiness Programme which was to build the capacity of the country to access GCF funds, she said  the two-year programme would come to a close in a couple of weeks.

Mrs Fraikue said under the programme, the Ministry of Finance was supported to develop the Climate Change Finance Tracking Tools to help track climate finance and provide overview of climate finance in Ghana for decision making, indicating that an operations manual had also been developed for the NDA to guide the day-to-day activities of the secretariat.

“A prioritisation tool was developed to provide guidance to the NDA and its Technical Advisory Committee to prioritise climate change project proposal for submission to GCF,” she said, adding that two national implementing entities – Ecobank Ghana, Social Investment Fund- had been trained to administer the GCF funds.

Mrs Fraikue said government alone could not fund climate change projects and described the GCF Readiness Programme as a “game changer in our fight against negative impact of climate change.”

The Deputy Director and Head, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Unit of MESTI, Peter Dery in his remarks said climate change posed a serious threat to the country’s development.

He said climate change had a close nexus with development and could thwart the country’s development, stressing that measures and strategies ought to be put in place to tackle the menace of climate change.

Mr Dery entreated the private sector to support climate change finance and also encouraged them to take advantage of the numerous funds earmarked for the private sector to tackle climate change.