A non-governmental organization, Climate Change Advisors Ghana (CCAG), which seeks to promote climate change mitigation, adaptation, environmental sustainability, and renewable energy in Africa has been inaugurated in Cape Coast.
The NGO aims to support the country’s attempts at conserving biodiversity, enhancing smallholder farmer livelihoods, and reducing emissions from land-use changes in the high forest and transition zones.
Speaking at the inauguration last Friday, the Co-founder and Executive Director of CCAG, Dzifa Ahadzi, observed that climate change had received little attention in the country and that it required special effort to counteract negative environmental practices that further harmed the environment.
He said it was time for stakeholders to move rapidly because of the devastating consequences of climate change on the country’s agriculture and other sectors of the economy. “The impact of climate change on our environment is very huge and we need to put measures in place to mitigate such impact soon, this NGO is ready to take up climate change matters by providing advocacy, research policy analysis, capacity development, training, and policy direction for governments and other stakeholders to realize the goal,” he said.
Mr. Ahadzi emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement to improve education on climate-friendly initiatives. He stated that stakeholders must collaborate closely to provide timely inputs and avoid calamities.
The guest speaker for the event, Dr. Samuel Ofori, urged essential players in the agriculture sector to immediately implement measures to offset the impact of climate change on agriculture. He observed that agriculture in Africa was heavily reliant on natural weather and that climate change constituted a big threat to the sector.
Dr. Ofori said that for the government to dramatically lessen the impact of climate change on the country’s agricultural sector, stakeholders must respond promptly to the growing threat and comprehend the concerns surrounding what to do in terms of survival. “The agriculture that we do in Africa depends on the natural weather and this is the situation where the natural weather is changing gradually and so you cannot plan on what to do or plan for agriculture because of what will happen; the more reason why we must act promptly avert any mishap,” he stated.
He advised the government and other stakeholders to take practical steps such as passing rules to ramp up the fight against environmentally harmful activities, educating people in the agriculture industry, and adopting local ways that encourage healthy farming practices.
May 12, 2022
Source: Graphiconline.com
By Edith Mensah
