National Climate-Smart Agriculture and Food Security Action Plan of Ghana (2016-2020).

The present Action Plan on National Climate-Smart Agriculture and Food Security (2016-2020) provides the implementation framework for an effective development of climate-smart agriculture. The Plan formulates specific strategies that will contribute developing climate-resilient agriculture and food systems for all agro-ecological zones, as well as the human resource capacity required for a climate-resilient agriculture promotion in Ghana. The Action Plan is therefore an effort to translate to the ground level, the broad national goals and objectives in climate-smart agriculture. Its development has been made possible through the active engagement of various public and private institutions and organizations in Ghana. The methodology comprised desk research, data collection through interviews and participatory workshops and small group meetings. A review of relevant agricultural policy documents such as the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP), the METASIP and the Agriculture Sustainable Land Management Strategy and Action Plan was done to analyse the current national agricultural policy environment.
The overall goal of the present Action Plan is to facilitate and operationalize the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) for effective integration of Climate Change into Food and Agriculture sector development policies and programmes. Consistent with the policy objectives of the focus area of the Agriculture and Food Security in the NCCP, this Action Plan specifically aims to: 1) Develop climate-resilient agriculture and food systems for all agro-ecological zones; 2) Develop human resource capacity for climate-resilient agriculture; 3) Elaborate on the implementation framework and the specific climate-smart agriculture activities to be carried out at the respective levels of governance.
The expected outputs from the implementation of the Action Plan will include the following: i) Climate-resilient agriculture and food systems for all agro-ecological zones; ii) Enhanced expertise for climate-resilient agriculture at all levels, e.g. researchers, agriculture extension officers and farmer; iii) Policy makers sensitized on climate-smartness in agriculture; iv) Multi-sectoral institutional mechanisms that support climate-smart agriculture (policy and finance).
The Action Plan defines implementation programmes in the respective agro-ecological zones and in the various districts. Activities defined in the Action Plan have been developed on the premise that the eight programme areas of the Agriculture and Food Security focus area of the NCCP, provide a useful framework for detailing the specific activities and their corresponding implementing agencies. Other key components discussed the cross-cutting issues in the implementation of the plan and the monitoring and evaluation system. What remains crucial now is the allocation of resources to effectively implement the plan. In this regards, the lessons from the prioritization of the action areas by the stakeholders are instructive. Each of the three agro-ecological zones has action areas of emphasis. However, the development and promotion of climate-resilient cropping systems is important for all three zones and national efforts to focus on this since it is at the foundation of food security. More specifically, for the Savannah Zone, water conservation and irrigation systems are critical. For the Transition Zone, the development of livestock production system is important whilst for the Forest Zone, capacity development is a priority. The key message from the prioritization is that, it guides the formulation of the location-specific activities to address climate change and therefore engenders effective allocation of national resources. What needs to be underscored is the fact that, it is not the formulation of plans that creates impact. It is the dedicated implementation and commitment to the ideals and principles undergirding the plans that bring results. The earnest hope is to have commitment manifested with this National Action Plan.
Action Plan 1: Create public awareness of biodiversity to promote conservation, restoration and sustainability; A.P.2: Integrate and mainstream biodiversity into national development and poverty reduction strategies; A.P.3: Incentives harmful to biodiversity are eliminated; A.P.4: Develop plans for sustainable production and consumption and keep the impacts on resource use within safe ecological limits; A.P.5: Reducing the rate of loss of all natural resources (forests); A.P.6: Overfishing is avoided; A.P.7: Agriculture, aquaculture and forestry managed sustainably, to ensure conservation of biodiversity; A.P.8: Minimizing pollution; A.P.9: Ensuring that invasive alien species are identified and priority species are controlled or eradicated, and measures are in place to manage pathways to prevent them; A.P.10: Minimizing the anthropogenic pressures on coral reefs, and other vulnerable ecosystems impacted by climate change or ocean acidification; A.P.11: Ensuring that terrestrial and inland water, and coastal and marine areas are conserved through systems of Protected Areas; A.P.12: Preventing the extinction of threatened species; A.P.13: Maintaining the genetic diversity of domestic and wild plants and animals; A.P.14: Restoring and safeguarding ecosystems; A.P.15: Enhancing ecosystem resilience and restoration to promote biodiversity conservation to carbon stocks; A.P.16: Implementing the Nagoya Protocol; A.P.17: Implementing an effective, participatory and updated NBSAP; A.P.18: Ensuring that the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities use, are respected; A.P.19: Knowledge, on the science base and technologies relating to biodiversity and the consequences of its loss, are improved; A.P.20: Mobilizing increased financial resources for effectively implementing the strategic plan for biodiversity 2016- 2020.
The text consists of 7 Parts as follows: Introduction (I); Linkage between the action plan and policy documents (II); The programmes areas of the agriculture and food security focus area (III); Cross-cutting issues (IV);Implementatin arrangements (V); Monitoring and evaluation (VI); Conclusion and way forward (VII). Two Annexes are enclosed.