By Philip Tengzu
Wa, (UW/R), Jan. 31, GNA – Stakeholders from ActionAid Ghana’s “Strengthening Resilience through Community Action Plans (CAPs) project operational areas have embraced the project to impact the lives and livelihoods of the people.
They said the eleven-month project was a “game changer” as it would improve access to potable water, irrigation facilities, and dams, restore destroyed vegetative cover, and enhance soil health for agricultural production.
ActionAid Ghana (AAG) is implementing the CAPs project in the Upper West and Savannah Regions with funding from the Resilience Against Climate Change (REACH) Project being implemented by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) through the European Union Ghana Agriculture Programme’s (EUGAP).
Speaking at the project’s inception workshop in Wa, Mr Osman Adams, the Assembly Member for Guo Electoral Area in the Wa West District, said access to potable water for the people in the Boro and Asse communities had been a major challenge to them.
The workshop was to update stakeholders and enable the district and community-level stakeholders to understand their roles in the project and to secure their commitments towards its implementation.
The project is being implemented in the Wa Municipal, Wa East, Wa West, Nadowli-Kaleo, Lawra, Jirapa, Sissala East and Sissala West Districts in the Upper West Region and the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District in the Savannah Region.
Mr Adams said difficulty in accessing water at those communities adversely affected women’s economic activities and girl’s education because they had to scout for water daily for their families.
“Water is the top priority of the Boro and Asse communities in their action plans because women and girls sometimes spend the whole day searching for water.
These boreholes will be of great help to them, especially women’s economic activities and children’s education”, he explained.
The participants stressed the need for measures to ensure sustainability of the project including ensuring proper maintenance of the facilities among the community members.
Mr Seidu Shiraz, a Deputy Director at the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District Assembly, called for collaboration between traditional leaders and the assemblies to ban group hunting in their communities as such activities involved bush burning, which could jeopardise the project interventions.
He gave the assurance that they would support the project implementation to propel development of their communities and people.
Mr John Nkaw, the Country Director of ActionAid Ghana, explained that the CAPs project aimed to provide support for climate interventions through sustainable water management, forest restoration, and enhanced soil health.
He said the project would support farmers to adopt conservation agriculture and to build resilience against the impact of climate change on their farming activities.
Mr Samuel Appiah Kubi, the Technical Adviser of the REACH project at GIZ, explained that the CAP’s was the third component of the REACH project and sought to implement some provisions of the communities’ action plans they developed through the REACH project.
The project targeted to drill and rehabilitate 55 boreholes, construct and rehabilitate 10 irrigation facilities, and construct and rehabilitate five dams.
It would also establish 40 forest restoration projects and implement 30 soil health measures including promoting compost production and use.
The participants appealed to the members of the beneficiary communities to support the project implementation in their communities.
The District Cluster Inception meetings were also held in Jirapa and Tumu.
GNA