Ghana to prepare climate change learning strategy

The Ministry of the Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, on Wednesday began the process of designing a climate change learning strategy, to help educate Ghanaians on the phenomenon and how to adapt to it.

In this direction, the Ministry is hosting a national planning workshop of stakeholders, including the academia, civil society, financial and private sectors, youth groups, and educational institutions to get views and opinions to input into the learning strategy.

The strategy development process is being supported by the “One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership, also known as UN CC: Learn,” a partnership of 34 UN agencies that help countries figure out their peculiar climate change issues and needs and then design strategies to address them.

The National Climate Change Learning Strategy would be an important piece in Ghana’s national climate change response, to help deliver climate learning-related products and services.

Mr Ebenezer Appah-Sampong, the Ag. Deputy Executive Director, in charge of Technical Services at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the development of the strategy would help transfer knowledge and impart skills.

It would also help raise awareness with the aim to bring about changes in behaviour, enhance performance, and develop other capacities to contribute to the achievement of the long-term objective of ensuring climate resilient and climate compatible economy.

He said: “It is important to note that, climate change poses challenges to our capacity to develop and assure the economic, social and environmental sustainability of our country. It is therefore important that we change our attitudes and acquire new skills in order to enhance our resilience to climate change challenges.”

Mr Appah-Sampong explained that Ghana’s Climate Change Policy launched in 2014 identified climate change capacity building, information, communication and education as key pillars to achieving the objectives of the policy.

Besides, the five-year EPA Environmental Education Strategy also identified the same needs and outlined a number of activities to increase awareness and education on climate change.

He said the development of a Climate Change Learning Strategy was therefore expected to foster a systematic and country-driven process for determining priority actions.

That, he said, would enhance climate change learning, and strengthen national education and training systems, through cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder collaboration.

The Strategy would also be designed to support a number of programme actions, including the integration of Climate change into the curriculum of primary, secondary and tertiary/higher education, and national and local development plans.

Ms Christine Evans-Klock, UN Resident Coordinator, said Ghana was particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change because key sectors of the economy like agriculture, forestry and energy production were sensitive to rising temperatures, changing rain patterns, and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events.

She said human resources and skill development were therefore crucial for Ghana’s climate change response, and that explained why the UN was assisting the country to develop the learning strategy to help educate all sections of the public and institutions that needed information and awareness on climate change.

Mr Mathias Feldmann, Head of Co-operation at the Switzerland Embassy in Ghana, on behalf of the Swiss government, which is providing financial and technical support for Ghana’s strategy, said Switzerland attached importance to climate change education and training.

It is in this direction that Switzerland has decided to support partner countries in taking a strategic approach to learning and skills development on climate issues.

He said the learning strategy would in the long-term make countries and societies more resilient to climate change, through helping people to better understand the causes of climate change, and equip them with the right set of skills to address its impacts at the global, national and local levels.

Dr Emmanuel Techie-Obeng, the National Focal Point for Climate Change Education, Training and Public Awareness in Ghana, said the learning strategy was expected to be completed by November.

It would be presented and launched at the UN Conference of Parties (COP 21) in Paris in December and later in Ghana in January 2016.