Community Aid for Rural Development (CARD Ghana), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has launched a project to promote climate resilience and sustainable practices among communities in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region.
Dubbed, the "Sustainable Climate Resilience Action Project", the 11-month project is funded by the German Agency for International Corporation (GIZ) under the European Union Ghana Agriculture Program's (EUGAP) Resilience Against Climate Change (REACH) project.
The project is expected to directly empower 2000 smallholder farmers, including 1,300 females and 700 males in 20 communities within the district.
Speaking at the project inception meeting in Wechiau, the Wa West District capital, on February 11, 2024, Ms. Ernestina Biney, the Programme Manager, of CARD Ghana, said the project seeks to improve sustainable land and water management practices and restore degraded farmlands.
She said the project will offer services under three thematic areas water management, trees and reforestation, and soil health; including irrigation systems, tree planting, and composting techniques.
She indicated that the services to render to the beneficiary communities were selected based on needs assessment through a review of the Community Action Plans (CAPs) which the REACH project supported the communities to develop.
"These communities have been carefully selected based on the needs assessment with high community participation in intervention prioritization, action designs, and implementation. We also looked at, the community leaders, their willingness to support the projects and also their willingness to adapt climate resilience measures in their farming activities,” she explained.
She said each community will receive a service under its CAP which aligns with the project objective: "improving sustainable water and land management practices to foster resilience towards the impact of climate change, reducing land degradation and enhancing maintenance of biodiversity for food security and livelihood empowerment."
Ms Biney called on the stakeholders which comprised chiefs, Assembly Members, district assembly officials and officials of key government agencies, to support the successful implantation of the project.
On his part, the Wa West District Coordinating Director, Mr. Yango K. Crispin applauded CARD Ghana and its partners for the intervention, saying it would help the communities to adopt climate and related agricultural practices for the alleviation of poverty.
“It will support us. One, to ensure that at least we have water to drink, we still have water to water our plants and crops, and those with irrigations, we can do dry season farming and other things so that, [during] the dry season, most of our youth don't go down looking for jobs. And, again, they would have had jobs within the community and can build themselves and improve their livelihood,” he said.
He urged the beneficiary communities to give the project the needed support to ensure it succeeds and benefits all.
Kong-Naa, Naa Yendau Dong Isaac III, chief of Kong, one of the beneficiary communities, said the project was timely and would help their communities address some of the challenges they have long faced.
He pledged the full support of his community to ensure the success of the project, saying “we will support in any way possible as required of us to ensure the project works.”
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