STAKEHOLDERS VALIDATE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK TO ENHANCE FOREST POLICY COHERENCE AND PUBLIC EXPENDITURE IN GHANA'S AFOLU SECTORS, ACCRA, GHANA
The initiative, implemented through a collaborative partnership between the CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), the Thünen Institute, and Makerere University, operates with backing from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN-REDD Programme. The central aim of the workshop was to gather multi-stakeholder feedback to refine a framework that evaluates how existing policy instruments interact within the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sectors.
Delivering the opening remarks, Dr. Joseph Appiah-Gyapong, the Acting Director of the Climate Change Unit at the Forestry Commission of Ghana, underscored the complex challenges plaguing the landscape. He noted that combating persistent issues like deforestation, illegal land-use activities, and accelerating climate change demands more than isolated interventions. Instead, it requires stringently coordinated policy frameworks, highly effective governance structures, and the strategic allocation of public funds.
The FoRCE project aims to address these exact needs by integrating Forestry Public Expenditure Reviews (PERs) to examine how public investments can be structurally optimized to support viable livelihoods and forest conservation simultaneously.
The technical sessions featured comprehensive presentations highlighting preliminary findings from current policy analysis and public expenditure evaluations.
The diverse panel of presenters included:
Ms. Naoko Takahashi representing the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Dr. Richard Fischer from the Thünen Institute of Forestry, Germany.
Dr. Jewel Andoh from the CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (CSIR-FORIG).
Participants were organized into seven groups designed to optimize stakeholder inputs on the draft analytical framework, sharing findings from sector policy coherence analyses, evaluating the effectiveness of existing policy instruments, and assessing their long-term relevance.
The workshop brought together approximately 40 expert participants, bridging the gap between state bodies such as the Ministry of Agriculture, COCOBOD, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, and the Environmental Protection Authority and local farmers, academia, and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
In his closing remarks, Dr. Kwame Antwi Oduro, Director of CSIR-FORIG, thanked the participants for their invaluable contributions.
He emphasized that the finalized framework would serve as a bedrock for future policy formulation, ensuring that public resources are effectively deployed to achieve a balance between sustainable agricultural production and robust forest conservation in Ghana.
The workshop program was seamlessly facilitated by Dr. Elizabeth Obeng as the Master of Ceremony.
