AGN Chair urges action-driven tracking and reporting on inclusive climate adaptation in Ghana’s agriculture

Government officials, climate experts, and agricultural stakeholders convened in Accra for a three-day workshop aimed at enhancing inclusive climate adaptation tracking and reporting within Ghana's farming industry. The event, organized by Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES), the University of Cape Town, and Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) alongside the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seeks to equip participants with the skills necessary to align national reporting protocols with international benchmarks.

As unpredictable weather patterns, droughts, and increasing temperatures threaten Ghana's rain-fed, smallholder-focused agriculture, the keynote address delivered by Nana Dr. Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, Chair of the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN), emphasized the need to shift from mere paperwork to tangible impacts on vulnerable communities.

"Our focus must be on ensuring that adaptation efforts are effectively reaching those who need them most and demonstrating tangible results," Dr. Amoah stressed. He pointed out that as Ghana advances resilience initiatives such as promoting climate-resistant crops, early warning systems, and expanding irrigation, it is crucial for the government to assess the real-world benefits these projects provide to farmers.

"Currently, it is not enough to merely show that adaptation activities are being executed," Dr. Amoah pointed out. "We must also be able to prove that those efforts are decreasing vulnerability, bolstering resilience, and reaching those who require support the most." He further warned that current tracking methods often fail to account for marginalized groups, leading to misleading progress reports.

Drawing on global frameworks like the Belém Adaptation Indicators (BAI) adopted at COP30, Dr. Amoah called for a stronger connection between international climate negotiations and local agricultural conditions. "The negotiating room and the farmer's field should not be seen as separate entities," he argued. He stressed that effective reporting requires a solid foundation, including clearly defined roles within institutions, established baselines, and systematic data transfer from local to national levels.

As Ghana prepares its Second Biennial Transparency Report (BTR2) under the UNFCCC Enhanced Transparency Framework, the workshop functions as a technical preparatory step to outline data handling processes, validators, and key indicators for various agricultural sub-sectors. Dr. Amoah urged participants to move beyond the cycle of international reporting to establish a robust, evidence-based information system that not only improves reporting but also strengthens the link between climate finance, policy decisions, and actionable measures on the ground.