World Bank Supports Ghana With Additional $150 Million

The World Bank has provided an additional $150 million for the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project (GARID) to improve flood risk management and solid waste management for more than 2.5 million people in the Odaw River Basin in the Greater Accra Region.

The Greater Accra Region accounts for more than 40 percent of the country's non-oil GDP and confronts increased flood risks that threaten the country's economic and social development potential. Urban flooding has increased in frequency and intensity due to rapid urbanization and occupation of flood-prone areas, inadequate and neglected drainage systems, and the accumulation of solid refuse along waterways.

53,000 individuals were affected by the June 3, 2015 flood, which caused $55 million in damages to the housing, transportation, water, and sanitation sectors and an estimated $105 million in reconstruction costs. At the time, the GARID project, a specialized intervention program, was designed to resolve these issues.

"The World Bank is pleased to assist Ghana during these macroeconomic challenges and to contribute to a holistic approach to flood management through this additional financing for GARID. This is essential to achieving the World Bank's twin objectives of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, as well as increasing the resilience of African cities, according to Pierre Laporte, Country Director for Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone at the World Bank.

"This additional support fills a financing gap caused by the activation of the Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC) in 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the inclusion of resettlement compensation for approximately 2,800 project-affected individuals. It also addresses cost overruns caused by inflation and engineering requirements for significant infrastructure investments."

This project will continue to prioritize investments that increase flood risk resilience and solid waste management systems in specific Odaw River Basin communities. It will provide additional funding to continue financing the structural measures to enhance the basin's detention capacity for flood mitigation. In addition, it will provide targeted interventions in low-lying areas of the basin and upstream interventions associated with the management of municipal solid refuse.

Through investments funded by the Climate Resilient Drainage and Flood Mitigation Measures component, the GARID initiative will also provide substantial climate change adaptation benefits. In flood-prone, low-income communities, the interventions will improve drainage infrastructure, establish an early warning system, and promote improved solid waste management.

Catherine Lynch, Senior Urban Specialist and Task Team Leader for the GARID project, stated, "The planned investments in flood mitigation infrastructure under GARID will directly reduce the flooding risks for urbanizing and economically productive areas of the Greater Accra Region, limiting the direct flood hazards on more than 138,000 people."