The UAE and Ghana have announced a $30 million partnership for nature-based community development and climate solutions.
The agreement sets out six areas for investment including biodiversity, reforestation and agroecology – a type of sustainable farming – that can deliver climate and community benefits.
State news agency Wam reported on Sunday the partnership also seeks to focus on gender equality and youth.
Dr Amna Al Shamsi, UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, and Samuel A Jinapor, Ghana’s Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, signed a letter of intent in the presence of Razan Al Mubarak, UN climate change high-level champion for Cop28 and president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, who led the Cop’s nature workstream, and Abdulla Balalaa, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Energy and Sustainability.
“Our partnership with Ghana is a testament to the UAE’s focus on global biodiversity, climate and development goals,” said Dr Al Shamsi.
“It underscores our commitment to the UAE Consensus, which calls for the ending and reversal of deforestation by 2030 and highlights the importance of the protection and preservation of biodiversity," she added, referring to the outcome of the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai last year.
"Our investment in Ghana will not only bolster the country's afforestation efforts but will also create a broader positive impact on local communities. By backing a comprehensive set of initiatives aimed at forest protection and enhancement, we aim to strengthen local livelihoods and foster greater community engagement.”
The West African country is being affected by increasing temperatures, intense rain and drought that scientists believe is linked to climate change. A third of Ghana is covered by forest. But deforestation, particularly driven by an increase in cocoa cultivation, is a major problem.
“Even though Ghana is receiving carbon payments, there exists critical implementation gaps that need to be filled with other financial instruments to generate more emission reductions,” said Mr Jinapor.
“This is what our partnership with the UAE represents. Particularly, it will deliver critical support for livelihood enhancement and ecosystem protection. We are grateful to the UAE government for walking the talk, and we also assure them that these resources will be used to generate the best value for forests, climate and people, towards a 1.5ºC world.” This refers to the climate target set by the Paris Agreement to limit the average global surface temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Cop28 concluded with an agreement known as the UAE Consensus, under which governments agreed on a goal to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030, as well as align their climate strategies with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The framework was agreed by governments at the UN biodiversity summit in 2022 and aims to protect the world's nature and ecosystems.
The UAE and partners mobilised more than $2 billion of finance for nature-climate projects and programmes during Cop28 including a broader investment package for the Resilient Ghana strategy.
Ghana and the UAE are also members of the Forest and Climate Leaders Partnership, a public-private investment co-ordination mechanism that seeks to protect and restore forests across the world.
The UAE-Ghana framework also outlines guidelines for measurement, reporting and verification, utilising Ghana’s pioneering REDD+ process, a scheme formally known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation designed to help the fight against climate change.
“Cop28 set a new precedent for co-ordinating action on nature and climate, as well as for anchoring investment in plans developed by nature-rich countries themselves,” said Ms Al Mubarak. “The UAE-Ghana partnership is a great example of the approach that will help to keep the target of 1.5ºC within reach, while delivering on the sustainable development goals and protecting biodiversity.”
The UAE and Ghana will detail some of the initial projects under their bilateral partnership at Cop29 in Azerbaijan in November and at Cop30 in Brazil next year.
