Minister Guilbeault travels to Ghana and announces $20 million to help four African countries with data systems needed to fight climate change
Accra: From devastating droughts to deadly heatwaves, developing countries are some of the hardest hit by climate change, yet often have limited capacity to prevent and adapt to the effects. For people around the world, Canada continues to step up, supporting partner countries to take climate action, build resilience, and drive a clean energy future.
Today, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, announced $20 million over four years to support four West African countries—Ghana, Liberia, The Gambia, and Togo—to help them build the capacity of their national climate measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems. MRV systems are a crucial step for nations to develop strong and effective mitigation policies and actions because they give governments transparent, accurate, and comparable information on emissions sources. This Canadian climate finance project administered by NovaSphere, a Canadian non-profit organization, will help countries track emission reduction progress as they work towards achieving their goals under the Paris Agreement.
The announcement was made at a bilateral meeting with the Honourable Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, and with the Honourable Benito Owusu-Bio, Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources. Both Canada and Ghana are building a solid partnership with the shared goal of tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. This partnership has been further cemented by their ongoing co-leadership to ratify a new legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).
Minister Guilbeault’s trip to Ghana provided an opportunity to understand the best ways international partners such as Canada can support their mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries, vital information for the G7 ministerial meetings this week in Germany as well as COP27 in Egypt in November, which will focus on climate change adaptation.
Minister Guilbeault also met with Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, on climate finance and the role of multilateral development banks. A discussion with representatives of United Nations agencies and the World Bank provided insights into how multilateral organizations are supporting green economic development in West Africa. The Minister heard first-hand from the private sector how they are working to address plastic pollution and met with the Or Foundation, which works to promote the circular economy.
The Minister also had many exchanges with researchers, youth, local non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders on important sustainability issues such as energy transition, biodiversity conservation, adaptation and resilience, smart agriculture, and forest conservation.