Ghana has emerged as one of the leading performers under the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) program as the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) intensify collaboration on climate adaptation initiatives.
The renewed partnership came into focus during a courtesy visit by officials from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UNCDF to the Commission on Tuesday, May 6, to review progress made under the LoCAL Plus implementation framework in Ghana.
UNCDF Technical Specialist, Angela Kwashie, described Ghana as “one of the successful cases” under the LoCAL programme, noting that the country had advanced to the programme’s “second stage” alongside Uganda.
The LoCAL initiative, implemented in Ghana since 2015 through collaboration between NDPC and UNCDF, supports climate resilience at the local level through Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRGs), which finance climate-smart investments by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
Speaking during the engagement, NDPC Principal Planning Analyst, Mercy Azoomah Issah, said climate change had moved from being treated as a “secondary issue” to becoming central to development planning and policy implementation.
According to her, NDPC has supported the 13 participating District Assemblies to integrate climate adaptation measures into their medium-term development plans through revised planning frameworks, policy gap assessments and capacity-building programmes.
She added that approved district development plans remain critical for accessing government funding in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, reinforcing NDPC’s regulatory role within the implementation framework.
Also addressing the meeting, Wilfred Ebo Sam-Awortwi identified “inadequate financing and coordination challenges” as major constraints affecting climate interventions, despite the positive impact recorded across participating districts.
He indicated that expanding the intervention nationwide would improve “coordination, knowledge sharing and overall national impact.”
Meanwhile, NDPC Director for Monitoring and Evaluation, Bright Atiase, disclosed that the Commission had deployed the District Development Data Platform (DDDP) to support real-time sub-national reporting across all 261 districts.
He said the platform, currently being piloted in about 60 districts, forms part of efforts to fully digitise Annual Progress Report submissions and strengthen reporting aligned with national development priorities, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ECOWAS and African Union frameworks.
NDPC Director for Research, Richard Tweneboah-Kodua, stressed the importance of sustained collaboration and “collective action” in advancing climate resilience and sustainable development across the country.
