The World Vision Ghana (WVG) has inaugurated its National Advisory Committee (NAC) of the Regreening Africa Project Phase (II) and elected Professor Saa Dittoh of the University for Development Studies as its chairman.
Dr Kwame Antwi Oduro, CSIR – Forestry Research Institute of Ghana was elected Vice-chairman with Mr Richard Appoh of WVG as the Secretary of the Committee.
The purpose of NAC is to provide strategic and policy advice to the lead implementation organisation of the project – the WVG and its partners, review work plans and progress, and provide overall guidance regarding implementation of the project at country-level.
It will also support the project at country-level in identifying opportunities to improve project efficiency, effectiveness and impact.
The WVG is implementing the project in Ghana in collaboration with the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), under the coordination of CIFOR-ICRAF, with funding from the European Union (EU).
Its overall objective was to strengthen the resilience (adaptive capacity, land health, diverse production, and livelihoods) of communities across northern Ghana in the face of climate change, land degradation, and food/nutritional insecurity through regreening.
Mr Edward Akunyagra of the CRS giving overview of the Regreening Africa Project said restoring agricultural livelihood in the drylands of Africa was inextricably linked to restoring the land itself.
“Land is the foundation of food and nutrition security, human well-being and development in general. It is also the driving force behind economic development in many African countries,” he stated.
Mr Akunyagra added, “The role of land restoration in capturing carbon for climate change mitigation and in improving the resilience and capacity of communities to adopt to changing climate is widely recognised.”
He said in building on the lessons and achievements of Regreening Africa – Phase (i), the second phase of the project sought to deepen impact through enabling policy environments, expansion of tree-based value-chain, and inclusive green jobs.
“It will also promote wider mix of restoration practices, biodiversity conservation, and evidence-sharing for scaling up sustainable land management practices,” he pointed out.
Madam Tinah Mukunda, Country Director, WVG who inaugurated the Committee in a speech expressed gratitude to the EU and other partners for supporting the project to solve climate change in Ghana.
“We are grappling with the problem of climate change and partnership is the way to go to bring our different expertise together to scale up the regreening efforts from the local level to the national level,” she stated
She added, “It is my prayer and desire that we will continue to work together and speak with one voice to influence policies as far as climate change adaption is concern.”
Mr Clemens Beckers, Programme Manager at the EU said much has been achieved through the project but much more efforts must be put into it and urged the committee members to work together in the spirit of unity.
“Let us truly collaborate, share our knowledge as we come from different institutions with different expertise and views, and show the love we have for the project,” he advised.
He said the EU was committed to supporting the project to regreen Africa and that it would continue to partner Ghanaian authorities at the national, regional and local levels to ensure that the initiative achieved its goals.
Prof Dittoh , the Chairman of the Committee thanked the members for electing him for the position and that he work together with them to ensure that the objectives of the project were met.