Accra, Nov.18, GNA – Government is committed to ensuring that Ghana becomes a fully-fledged member of the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition.
Inaugurating an 11-member taskforce in Accra, to facilitate process towards ensuring that the country enjoyed the full benefits of being a LEAF affiliation member, Mr Samuel Abu Jinapor, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, said as the country had signed a letter of intent to be a member of the LEAF Coalition, it was necessary to explore ways of meeting other conditions precedent for the signing the “emission reduction purchase agreement”.
The Minister explained that the signing of the final agreement would permit Ghana to have access to funding in order to fight emission and climate change challenges.
He said it was on that basis the Ministry constituted a committee to work towards attaining the set objectives.
The Minister tasked members of the committee to bring their experience and knowledge to bear in helping government achieve its targets.
“We were successful at signing a letter of intent with LEAF Coalition. Ghana was the only country from Africa to be selected by the panel of experts after the rigorous scrutiny that our application had to be subjected to,” Mr Abu Jinapor said.
The LEAF coalition is a public-private initiative led by the government of the United Kingdom, Norway and several other global companies to raise funds for forest base climate action.
So far, they have raised $1billion to combat emission.
The signing of the letter of intent is a major hurdle that a country has to cross before it can get to the point of signing a binding emission reduction purchase agreement.
The Minister said at that stage, member nations can access some of the funding to implement some of the ambitious afforestation programmes.
The Chairman of the Committee, Mr Benito Owusu-Bio, who also doubled at the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in charge of Forestry, welcomed the challenge and assured of the Committee’s determination to help the country satisfy all demands and access the funding.
“The committee would want to assure that we are grateful for being selected to be members of this important task force.
“We also want to assure you that we’ll hit the ground running and produce a robust proposal that will enable the government and the Ministry to access the funding,” he stated.
Members of committee include; Mr Tutu Agyare, Dr Eugene Owusu, Mr Musa Abu-Juam, Mr John Allotey, Mr Tabi Agyarko, Mr Joseph Osiakwan, Mr Hugh Brown, Mrs Roselyn Fosua-Agyei, Mr Michael Akowuah and Mr Foster Gyamfi.
GNA