The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) is paying Ghana $4.8 million for reducing carbon emissions by 972,000 tonnes over the period June to December 2019. The West African country is the second African country after Mozambique to benefit from a World Bank trust fund for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, commonly known as REDD+.
Ghana becomes the second African country after Mozambique to receive payments from a World Bank trust fund for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, known as REDD+. The announcement was made by the World Bank on 24 January 2023.
The Breton Wood institution says its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) has paid Ghana $4,862,280 for reducing 972,456 tonnes of carbon emissions for the first monitoring period of the programme, from June to December 2019. “This payment is the first of four under the country’s Emission Reduction Payment Agreement (ERPA) with the World Bank to demonstrate the potential for optimising results-based payments for carbon credits,” says Pierre Laporte, the World Bank’s country director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra. Leone.
The official also says that Ghana is eligible to receive up to $50 million for 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions reduced by the end of 2024.
Cocoa drives deforestation
The FCPF is a global partnership of governments, businesses, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations focused on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conserving forest carbon stocks, sustainably managing forests and enhancing forest carbon stocks in developing countries.
The FCPF’s actions are located in a six million hectare stretch of the Guinean forest in West Africa, where biodiversity and forests are under pressure from cocoa cultivation and unsustainable harvesting, as well as small-scale mining. Ghana is one of 15 countries that have signed ERPAs with the World Bank.
Read also-MOZAMBIQUE: Maputo receives $6.4 million to reduce CO2 emissions through REDD+.
However, Ghana is the world’s second largest cocoa producer, with 1.4 million tonnes for the 2020/2021 cocoa year. A crop that is presented as one of the main drivers of its economy, but also one of the main causes of deforestation in the south-eastern and western regions of the country. The West African country’s participation in the FCPF therefore encourages cocoa farmers to practice agroforestry and sustainable forest management techniques.
Boris Ngounou
