Speakers advocate grassroots participation in climate interventions

Speakers at a national forum on climate governance have called for the formulation and implementation of interventions to help address the global crisis.

They said rather than designing policies at the national level for implementation in communities, there must be a bottom-up approach where all interest groups at the local level were involved in co-creating solutions to the menace.

Those who made the call were Africa Special Envoy on Climate Change, Dr Samuel Dotse; the Deputy National Director of A Rocha Ghana, Daryl Bosu, and the Executive Coordinator of Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND), Chibeze Ezekiel.

They were speaking at a forum organised by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) to launch the Strengthening Climate Governance through Social Accountability and Citizen's Oversight in Local Climate Initiatives, with funding from the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP).

The project aims to address issues of climate change negatively impacting on ecosystems, societies and economies through enhanced climate governance, transparency and citizen engagement.

Objectives

The National Project Coordinator of Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Michael H. Okai, explained that the 12-month project thrives on citizenship engagement and awareness creation to promote transparency, accountability and inclusiveness in climate policy planning and implementation.

He added it would also empower citizens to demand accountability through social accountability approaches.

Mr Chibeze also said the initiative would ultimately strengthen climate governance through multi-stakeholder platforms.

Local participation

Mr Bosu, on the other hand, said that when policy formulation on climate change was focused on local actors, it would present an opportunity for inclusiveness.

To ensure that policies on climate change had the desired impact, he said there was the need for citizens’ participation, including vulnerable groups such as women, the youth and persons with disabilities (PWD).

"There should be grassroots participation in identifying the issues at the local level and pushing it to the national level rather than designing policies at the national level for implementation in local communities," Mr Bosu said.

Mr Daryl also said that special provisions should be made for the engagement of local stakeholders in funding projects targeted at climate change adaptation and mitigation.
 

Mainstreaming

For his part, Dr Dotse underscored the need to mainstream policies and frameworks on climate change into district-specific adaptation plans to make the desired impact.

He mentioned the national climate change policy; the national adaptation policy, and the national adaptation framework, which various interest groups could interrogate to see how their interests had been served.

Mr Chibeze also stressed the need for capacity building at the local level to equip participants on climate change .

He said it was when people at the grassroots were equipped with the needed knowledge on climate change that they could contribute effectively to tackling it.