The Sekyere Afram Plains District Assembly, as part of efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change in the District, has engaged citizens on its action plan on climate change at Drobonso.
The forum, which was put together in collaboration with the Vision for Action Foundation under the ‘I Am Aware’ initiative, sought to sensitise the citizenry on the negative effects of climate change and how they could contribute to its mitigation.
The ‘I Am Aware’ project is an initiative of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) which seeks to strengthen the demand for accountability and responsiveness in Ghana by improving citizen awareness and engagement with duty bearers about public service delivery issues in their communities.
With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the project works with collaborating partners and a large pool of volunteers at the national and district levels to empower citizens in their local communities.
It is against this background that Vision for Action Foundation who are local partners in the Sekyere Afram Plains District provided the platform for the Assembly to share its action plan on climate change with citizens.
Representatives from the Development Planning Unit, Environmental Health Unit, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), and the Department of Agriculture took turns to address participants on the need to adopt climate resilient measures in their daily activities.
They highlighted how human activities was driving the menace and stressed the need for attitudinal change in the fight against the global threat.
Mr. Umoro Yakubu, the District Planning Officer, said the Assembly had put together an action plan geared towards the implementation of interventions to promote climate resilient activities in the district.
He said at the heart of the plan was initiatives aimed at behavioural change among the citizenry though public education and citizen engagements at the community level.
Winning the fight against climate change, he noted, was a collective responsibility of every citizen and urged the people to desist from practices that were inimical to the fight against climate change.
Mr. Daniel Adjei, the District Director of the Department of Agriculture, said the wanton destruction of the forest cover was contributing massively to increasing effects of climate change in Ghana.
He said trees that were supposed to absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to prevent global warming were being destroyed by unscrupulous individuals for their selfish interest.
The Director blamed the situation for the disruption in the rainfall pattern which had become so unpredictable to the disadvantage of farmers most of whom relied on the rains for their farming activities.
He underscored the need for farmers to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices to protect their investments in the face of the increasing effects of climate change on farming in the country.
Mr. Justice Owuraku Boafo, Project Coordinator of Vision for Action Foundation, said his outfit had been involved in climate change sensitisation across the district as part of the ‘I Am Aware’ project.
Other activities performed by the Foundation under the project, according to him, were data collection and analysis of the revised annual action plan and budget as well as radio sensitisation on the plan and climate change.
Through the data collection, members of the Social Accountability Groups (SAG) in the communities are able to track the execution of projects as captured in the Medium Term Development Plan of the Assembly.
Mr. Daniel Appiah Awiemfour, Executive Director of the Foundation, said the forum apart from educating the people on their role in combating climate change also brought to fore the climate responsiveness of the Assembly and other stakeholders.
Source: Ghana News Agency