The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has launched its local C40's Global Green New Deal (GGND)/Inclusive Climate Action (ICA) Pilot Initiative at a day's consultation workshop for stakeholders in Accra.

The workshop was also to introduce to the city's stakeholders the Inclusive Climate Action Programme and to engage them on inclusion and equity for climate action with the focus on the informal sector to promote inclusivity of process, policy and impact within the sector.

The GGND pilot initiative was aimed at strengthening the informal sector collaboration with the city administration in ways to promote local ownership of climate action and enhance the sector's access to wider benefits of climate action.

Mr Mohammed Adjei Sowah, the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive opening the workshop said without the active inclusion and direction of the informal sector, a livable and resilient city could not be built hence the workshop for their contribution.

"We are fully aware that the informal sector contribute over 80 per cent of our workforce and 90 per cent of all new jobs created comes from the sector. So if this is the demography of our city then it is important that a special attention is given to the sector to help uplifts the city' standard of living," he said.

Mr Sowah, who is also the C40 Vice-Chair for Africa said over the years aggressive development attempts had been made which favoured the rich while little attention was paid to the huge population of the poor, the vulnerable and the weak, whose contributions were most needed for the progress of the city.

"It is about time we tap into the energies, the skills, and the interest of the informal sector to help find solution to the challenges of climate change," he stated.

He mentioned smoke from refuse burning and emissions of vehicles and negative environmental human activities as some of the factors that had contributed to climate change, which had affected rainfall pattern, resulted in strong sunshine and heat, flooding during the raining season and strong tidal waves that affected fishing.

"Today the cost of climate change to the economy of the city of Accra is so huge that if we pay less attention to the negative things we do to the environment there would be a time that we will not be able to manage our city," he said.

Mr Sowah said in the pursuit of driving climate change mitigation agenda the Accra Metropolitan Assembly has developed a Climate Action Plan, which has five key priority areas; namely waste, transportation, energy in buildings, land use, and the mainstreaming of climate issues in all activities.

"It is based on these activities that we then continue to engage all stakeholders in the city to pay particular attention to climate issues as we mainstream climate issues in every facet of our lives.

He said the AMA has put in place a policy to give discount to developers in the processing of their building permits for having climate friendly in their building design, adding: "This is to encourage the developers to mainstream climate change in their plans."

"We are quite excited that with this policy in place I have seen a lot of buildings coming up in Accra that are green friendly."

Mr Sowah said Ghana has made strong commitment to the Paris Agreement and that the workshop was to ensure that all hands were on deck without leaving anybody behind to tackle issues of climate change and greenhouse emission in the city.

"By 2050, 70 per cent of the world population would be living in cities hence the need to structure our city's development to accommodate the influx of people coming while making it livable and at the same time resilient to all forms of stresses and shocks that may happen."