A new World Bank-funded climate-resilient project initiated to directly engage 20,000 farmers in 100 farming communities in five regions has been launched in Goaso in the Ahafo Region.

The project, dubbed: "Enhancing Access to Benefits while Lowering Emissions” (EnABLE), is being rolled out in six hotspot intervention areas (HIAs) in Ahafo, Ashanti, Central, Eastern and Western North regions.

Implemented by Solidaridad West Africa in partnership with Tropenbos Ghana, the three-year project seeks to support the beneficiary farmers to plant trees.

At the launch, the West Africa Regional Director of Solidaridad, Isaac Gyamfi, said the initiative focused on combating climate change, strengthening livelihoods and ensuring equitable sharing of benefits that were accrued from emission reduction and promoting sustainable land use.

Under the project, the beneficiary farmers will be trained in agroforestry, sustainable land use and supplied with inputs, including seedlings for land restoration or cocoa agroforestry.

The project also focuses on promoting climate-smart cocoa production, reducing deforestation and forest degradation through sustainable land use practices, and enhancing social equity within cocoa-producing regions.

Its main objective is to enhance the inclusion of target beneficiaries in accessing carbon and non-carbon benefits from the Ghana Emissions Reduction Programme (ERP) and Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP).

It intends to tackle barriers preventing communities and farmers from accessing resources and benefits generated through emissions reduction and address illegal activities such as illegal logging and mining that threaten sustainable development.

The project also targets marginalised groups such as women, youth, migrant farmers and individuals to enhance their participation in sustainable farming practices and emissions reduction.

Climate resilience

Mr Gyamfi said the project also aimed at promoting sustainable and inclusive development in the area of supply chains, food production and climate resilience.

He said the project would school the beneficiary farmers to eliminate emissions in their farming activities.

Mr Gyamfi called on stakeholders to work together to ensure that the project was successfully implemented.

He thanked the World Bank for reposing confidence in Solidaridad by funding the EnABLE project and assured the bank of accountability, transparency and quality execution of the project.

Serious threat

The Ahafo Regional Minister, Charity Gardiner, said climate change was posing a serious threat to farmers, particularly cocoa farmers in the region.

She explained that unpredictable rainfall patterns, prolonged dry spells, soil degradation, and increasing temperatures had significantly reduced cocoa yields, putting farmers at risk of losing their livelihoods.

Mrs Gardiner said the activities of illegal miners had further exacerbated the problem, because they had led to deforestation, water pollution, and loss of productive farmlands.

"Many farmers have been forced to abandon their farms due to land degradation caused by unregulated mining activities, thereby worsening poverty and food insecurity in the region," she said.

Mrs Gardiner said the initiative was timely and significant because it had come at a time when farmers faced increasing threats to their livelihoods due to climate change.

She said the project was a crucial step toward tackling the environmental and economic challenges posed by climate change and unsustainable land-use practices, especially in their cocoa-growing communities.

Mrs Gardiner said the project would also drive economic growth and social equity in communities.

Reducing poverty

A Procurement Specialist at the World Bank, Patrick Ansah, said the project was in line with the mission and vision of the bank, because it focused on reducing poverty and practising environmental sustainability.

He said the bank was committed to the implementation of the project because of the inclusion of women, the youth and other vulnerable groups.

Mr Ansah said the bank would establish a robust monitoring and evaluation framework to track its implementation in order to ensure the project achieved its target.

He appealed to chiefs in the project implementing areas to also monitor it and urged farmers, particularly women and youth, to enrol in the project and plant trees to protect the environment.