Enhancing Carbon Sinks

Country Description

Ghana is a lower-middle-income country in West Africa with a coast along the Atlantic Ocean. It has two main ecological zones: the southern region (30%) is predominantly forest whilst the remaining 70% of the country is part of the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone and is drier. Average annual rainfall in the south is almost double that experienced in the north (World Bank Group, 2023).

Climate change poses a significant threat to Ghana due to sea level rise in the south and Sahelian climate effects in the north (Ghana EPA, 2020). Average temperatures are expected to increase by 2.3°C to 5.3°C by the end of the century (World Bank Group, 2021). Ghana is vulnerable to intense and complex droughts, flooding, increasing aridity, and faces a high degree of risk to hazards and disasters. The key climate change impacts in Ghana will be in the health sector due to the rise in infectious disease and agricultural sectors resulting from changes in rainfall and flooding along the coastal areas (World Bank Group, 2023). More than 70% of the country’s land area is used for agriculture, a sector which employs 45% of Ghana’s population (World Bank, Group 2021). Most of the agricultural production takes place in the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone, where poverty rates are close to 45% (compared to a national average of 10%) and where the effects of climate change are expected to be most severe (ibid.). ¼ of the population lives along the coast in highly urbanized areas like Accra which are vulnerable to extreme flooding (ibid.).

Ghana has invested in a range of adaptation measures and climate related projects including sea defense projects along the coastline, building the resilience of smallholder farmers, and improving flood risk and waste management in Accra (Ghana EPA, 2020).

CARE Ghana’s resilience approach focuses on reducing the impact of hazards, enhancing people’s ability to accommodate the immediate impact of shocks and stresses and improving capacity to adapt to frequent floods, drought and other climatic conditions. CARE Ghana’s work at the community level is driven by a participatory Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) approach, involving community awareness-raising, training and decision making, to identify appropriate adaptation responses to the challenges faced by communities. Beyond the community level, CARE Ghana works with key partners and civil society organizations to influence policy formulation and implementation at the national and sub national level.