Workshop on ‘Options for Deploying Forest Investment Programme Resources in Ghana'

The Forest Investment Programme (FIP) which has the objective of mobilizing significant funds to support developing countries' efforts in reducing deforestation and forest degradation has an ultimate aim of promoting sustainable forest management, leading to emission reductions and the protection of terrestrial carbon sinks. Ghana has been selected to benefit from FIP resources and could receive up to $48 million to pilot her carbon programmes under climate change. TBI Ghana therefore held a workshop to identify potential options for deploying FIP resources in Ghana. With respect to how Ghana's quota of the FIP fund can be deployed, workshop participants recommended investment in the following areas:

1. Strengthening forest governance platforms: Build capacities of communities to demand transparency and accountability and on community rights. Build capacity of community based organisations and civil society organisations in policy advocacy processes.
2. Multi-stakeholder processes in FIP development and implementation, including monitoring.
3. Policy issues such as carbon rights and ownership, and benefit sharing schemes.
4. Cocoa-carbon systems: Devising incentive schemes for farmers to retain trees on farms.
5. Community livelihood support systems in respect of Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas and protected areas.
6. Establishment of a national monitoring, recording and validation (MRV) centre to facilitate easy access to forest data.
7. Strengthening forest protection systems.
8. Forest sector diagnosis: In spite of the many interventions and injections the forest sector continues to experience, deforestation and forest degradation continue to soar. An analysis of the bane of sustainable forest management in Ghana and a joint discussion of strategies to address them is crucial.

Participants were of the view that in whatever manner Ghana chooses to deploy FIP resources, it should ultimately inure to:

1. Low greenhouse gases emissions from forestry.
2. Enhanced environmental integrity: co-benefits to other ecosystem services.
3. Reduced vulnerabilities to climate change.
4. Improved local socio-economic investment opportunities such as natural resource-based businesses which can serve as alternative livelihoods.
5. Sustainable forest management interventions, including migration from timber-focused forestry to ecosystem services or environmental forestry.

The workshop was attended by twenty-three persons drawn from key stakeholder groups including Parliament of Ghana, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Forestry Commission, Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources of KNUST, Environmental Protection Agency, The Netherlands Embassy and Civil Society Organisations such as IUCN, Civic Response and Nature Conservation Research Centre.