By Francis Ntow/Cate A. Agbodza
Accra, Dec. 14, GNA – Ghana and four other countries are charting a path to secure agricultural lands for sustainable production and a resilient food system under the Transformative Land Investment (TLI).
Ethiopia, Mozambique, Laos, Myanmar and Ghana have set up a multi-stakeholder platform, which has been commissioned to implement efforts to scale up socially and environmentally transformative land investment projects and programmes for a sustainable food system.
Speaking at the launch of the platform in Accra, Mr Foster Boateng, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Operations for the Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA) said the TLI intervention was timely.
The TLI is a Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) project, with the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, Centre for People and Forests (RECOFTC), Land Equity International (LEI) and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) as implementing partners.
He said the implementation of the project would help improve land-based investment in Ghana and ensure a resilient food system to aid the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal One – end poverty in all forms.
He noted that the project would support the Government’s effort to ensure the sustainable development of tree crops, including cashew, shea, mango, coconut, rubber and oil palm to contribute to national economic growth.
Mr Boateng said: “The stakes are high, and we pledge to play our part in transforming the land-based investment sector, to deliver the desired impacts envisaged. Our collective efforts and engagement in leveraging our common synergies toward TLI prospects remains crucial.”
He also said that TCDA, was ready to embrace the systems changes envisioned in the TLI pillars and principles of the project to cause the change desired and the goals of the TLI.
This is to enhance land governance and secure agriculture lands for increased production and build a robust food market system, while providing healthy and nutritious food to people in the beneficiary countries and beyond.
The stakeholder platform would provide an avenue to strategise to ensure that issues of inequalities in the agriculture system were addressed to ease the processes for land ownership for agriculture purposes and help secure buyers for crops.
In an interview with Ghana News Agency, Professor Divine Odame Appiah, the Multi-Country Project Manager, SNV Ghana, underscored the importance of the TLI project.
He said it would contribute to a more sustainable food systems, with gender-sensitive and socially inclusive improvements in land tenure security, livelihood, resilience in the agriculture ecosystems and improve the health of people.
He noted that the multi-stakeholder platform, with membership from the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), private sector land-based investors, public institutions and traditional authorities, would implement the project.
Some agriculture sector actors who spoke to the GNA after the launch of the multi-stakeholder platform, expressed confidence in the project and that it would help address land tenure issues to support agriculture production and improve the food value chain.
GNA