Climate Change and Agricultural Policy Processes in Ghana
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Date
2012-09
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Publisher
Future Agricultures Consortium
Abstract
This paper examines agriculture-climate change policy
discussions in Ghana in the context of, on the one hand,
increasing international interest and activity around
climate change and agriculture, and on the other,
concerns over whether climate policy and funding priorities
are aligned to domestic development priorities. The
paper poses the following questions: What are the
contested areas and dividing lines in policy discussions
and practices around climate change, which actors are
supporting different viewpoints, and what traction do
they have in the types of interventions that are being
promoted?
The Ghanaian economy is growing fast, and agriculture
is key to the country’s development ambitions (see
NDPC 2010). However, despite its importance to the
Ghanaian economy, agriculture has only recently become
a central part of climate change policy discussions in the
country. The current dominant policy framing of the
climate change-agriculture nexus is that climate change
is a new, externally imposed, risk that may hinder the
drive for modernised agriculture as an engine for growth
and poverty reduction. Ghana, according to this framing,
should be helped to access funds and technologies to
make the agriculture sector more robust and “climate
proofed” to face climate change challenges. This dominant
framing is supported by key government institutional
actors (clustered around environmental units), and
by key bi- and multilateral donors in Ghana. Most of
climate change activities and funding arising from this
framing centre on mitigating the effects of climate
change.
Ghana exemplifies the ways in which international
climate policy discussions meet domestic policy
processes, where outcomes are a result of interplay
between external and local discourses, interests and
actors. While it is clear that the mitigation focus is pushed
by international funding structures, there are also key
national processes and interests that promote this orientation.
These include a legacy of environmental framing
of the climate change problem, the active involvement
of mainly environmental actors in climate change policy
making, and an interest on the part of government and
non-governmental actors in the funding available for
mitigation activities.
But there are also divergent views in the Ghana policy
space. The benefits from a focus on mitigation opportunities,
following on from the disappointing experience with
the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the
Kyoto Protocol, are being challenged. The argument is
that mitigation is an interest that first and foremost serves
external actors and that it distracts from what should be
Ghana’s main task, namely to adapt to climate change.
This critique is related to a counter-narrative by NGOs
and some donors that policy discussions should focus
on how households and communities can be made less
vulnerable to current climate risks that hinder agricultural
livelihood activities and deepen poverty. Again, the
contention is that this goal will be advanced through
adaptation activities. Reorienting the country’s priorities
towards adaptation, moreover, will mean breaking out
a cycle of dependence on external actors for policy direction
and funding. However, these alternative framings
have so far had little traction in major policy debates. In
the absence of an influential civil society understanding
and affecting the climate change agenda in Ghana, or a
national policy framework that balances different interests,
there is a risk of disconnected policy solutions in
the face of climate change.
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Keywords
Climate, Agricultural Policy, Ghana, Climate Change