Missed Opportunities? Financing Climate Action in Urban Ghana and Uganda

Planning and Climate Change in African Cities: Informal Urbanization and ‘Just’ Urban Transformations

“…Bassett and Fogelman's (2013) explanation of climate adaptation as human agency in creating a more just society opens new ways of understanding how a transformative adaptation agenda focusing on the capacity of vulnerable informal social groups can enhance their access to resources and entitlements by changing institutions through political action. Transformative adaptation financing in African cities should be based on clear, just, and inclusive climate adaptation frameworks of projects and programs by the state and civil society (Diko 2019). The considerable interest in the enfranchisement of vulnerable populations via social movements and spatial justice directed at securing social and environmental entitlements underlies the transformative agenda increasingly dominating the climate adaptation literature in Africa (see Broto, Boyd and Ensor 2015; Korah and Cobbinah 2019) and beyond (see Shi 2021).…”

Are local development plans mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture? A mixed-content analysis of medium-term development plans in semi-arid Ghana

“…Indeed, despite nationally mandated guidelines requiring attention to climate change issues in MTDPs, Adu-Boateng ( 2015 , p. 5) observed tensions between local development and national climate change priorities, thereby leading to “climate change policy divergence” (Diko 2018 , p. 149). In addition, there is seemingly some path dependency (Diko 2019 , p. 518) in mainstreaming climate change into urban development plans in Ghana. These development planning realities give impetus to further examine the institutional context of climate change mainstreaming.…”

“…While the MTDPs showed strong mainstreaming because they provided sector-related agencies for project funding and implementation—mainly the central government and the local authority (i.e., MMDAs)—the specific funds were unclear. This lack of clarity in sourcing climate funds demonstrates a lack of innovation in attracting alternative funding opportunities by local authorities to address climate change impacts (Diko 2019 , 520) on the agriculture sector. Secondly, the omission of climate financing in MTDPs demonstrates the overreliance on central government transfers (Musah-Surugu et al 2019 , pp.…”

“…This overreliance can be detrimental to CSA initiatives in the Upper West Region due to the twin challenges of inadequate funds—owing to competing local projects—and endemic delays in the transfer of statutory funds from central to local governments that plague local development in Ghana (Yeboah and Obeng-Odoom 2010 , p. 89). Additionally, the lack of mention of climate finance in the plans can be attributed to an absence of clarity on how climate finance opportunities can be accessed by local authorities in Ghana (Diko 2019 , p. 520; Musah-Surugu et al 2018 , p. 73). While the three national CSA documents ( see Climate-Smart Agriculture in Ghana section) allude to this concern, these reports do not provide any pathways to address this challenge beyond suggesting the existence of climate finance opportunities for local authorities in Ghana.…”