Local Government Minister wants dedicated financing window for local authorities

Hajia Alima Mahama, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development on Thursday stated that the climate chance summit provided a platform to take steps to provide lasting solutions to climate impacts.

She said what should be considered critical was establishing a dedicated financing window for local authorities to implement their climate change priority action plan.

He said there was also the need to consider the priority of Africa in the climate action that addressed first access to energy and adaptation to climate change, adding that so far there was an imbalance between mitigation actions that represented an effort of over 600 billion dollars put by the international community compared to 200 billion for adaptation.

Hajia Mahama addressing participants on climate Change in Accra noted that there was no way the climate agenda could be implemented without the involvement of all stakeholders, including the local and regional governments, and the non-state actors: civil society, traditional rulers, private sector and academia.

She said Local and regional governments and their national associations had a critical role to play in organising the multi-stakeholders engagement into climate action at the local level.

The national associations of local and regional governments are also key in the dialogue between the national and the local levels of governments in defining climate actions and in building the capacities of their members The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development said “I can see that Ghana is fast becoming a Climate Hub not only for Africa, but globally given the many events hosted by Ghana in the last few months on that agenda.

Of course, we are up to the task and after this event, there could be various other events related to climate change to take place here in Ghana.

She said “yesterday we had a prelude to this conference – we participated in a Conference of Covenant of Mayors for Sub Sahara Africa and the theme was “Towards the Institutionalization of Local Climate Action and Access to Finance”. It is anticipated that the outcome paper will present local government authority input in the agenda of COP 25.

The first Climate Chance Summit that focused mainly on Africa was held in June, 2018, in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, with about 700 delegates in attendance.

Today, 1000 participants from the Local Government sector, and other Non-State Actors including; Civil Society Organizations and the private sector from Africa, parts of Europe and other parts of the world are gathered here to dialogue on how we could strengthen the Local Climate Actions Platform in Africa, she noted.

Mr Ronan Dontec, President of Climate Chance Association expressed satisfaction at the participation and added that ‘if we want to move forward, then we need the local government.’