CCAC National Planning Hub Insight Meeting

On 1 March, the CCAC welcomed Ben Brida, Côte D’Ivoire, Daniel Benefoh,  Ghana, Mohamed Sultan, Global Methane Hub, with facilitation from and Malick Haidara, USAID to present and discuss ideas for scaling up SLCP mitigation at the national and regional levels in Africa and beyond. A brief summary of some of the key points raised in the presentations and in the Q&A session, alongside biographies of the presenters are as follows: 

SUMMARY OF THE PRESENTATIONS

Ben Brida, Côte D’Ivoire

• Ben presented on key achievements in the region, including the launch of the new Integrated Africa Assessment produced by the African Union Commission, CCAC and UNEP. This report shows how African leaders can act quickly across the key sectors of transport, residential energy, agriculture, and waste, to produce both climate change mitigation and human health benefits.
• The report identifies 37 air quality measures which if implemented could avoid 50% of methane emissions by 2030, and avoid up to 800,000 premature deaths annually by 2063.
• There has been strong regional engagement on SLCP mitigation planning, 17 countries have already engaged in nationally planning and 6 new countries are interested or already beginning the process. Meanwhile, 5 countries in the region have final SLCP plans and are moving to implementation. Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are among the first countries in the world to quantitatively state health benefits of their NDC implementation, in addition to greenhouse gas emission reductions. Moreover, 10 countries in the region have incorporated actionable SLCP solutions into their NDCs.  Ben announced a CCAC Regional Francophone workshop co-hosted with the Ministry of Environment on 2-4 May 2023 that will launch new planning projects, foster peer to peer exchanges and develop new actions.

Daniel Benefoh, Ghana

• Daniel characterized SLCP action as a journey of transformation, beginning with planning, then moving to formulating actions and preparing resource mobilization, and eventually culminating in scalable investments.
• Daniel drew on the CCAC’s model of bringing together diverse national stakeholders from across health, climate, and finance communities to build a strong foundation for SLCP planning. This allowed Ghana in 2019 to begin the process of mainstreaming SLCP mitigation by reporting on SLCPs in national inventories.
• A key take away was the need for consistent, credible, transparent, and data-driven collective action to develop SLCP mitigation plans that have local ownership. Moreover, it is essential that there is a clear focus on policies that align at a sectoral, national, and sub-national level and are supported by a resource mobilization strategy.

Mohamed Sultan, Global Methane Hub

• The Global Methane Hub is focusing on producing a large impact in the energy, agriculture, and waste sectors by aligning funding for methane mitigation and driving coordination and collaboration through thier design as a hub.
• The Global Methane Hub is working across sectors to understand local contexts and the political economy of change. They recognize the need for readily available financing alongside supporting increasing domestic institutional capacity.
• At this stage the Global Methane Hub does not have a formalized call for proposal process, however they are keen to better understand country needs, in particular:
  • How to constructively engage with national processes, state and nonstate actors.
  • How to advance national and regional/continental ambitions simultaneously.

Q and A session facilitated by Malick Haidara, USAID

• The challenges of moving from planning to implementation, in particular in implementing of soot-free buses in Accra, Ghana, was raised. Daniel focused on the challenge of accessing financing. However, Ghana has been able to continue advancing by producing impact assessment studies and preparing regulation for charging stations and electric public transport.
• The question of how to focus on livestock and agriculture in an inclusive way was also raised. The difficulties of mitigating emissions from the agriculture sector were acknowledged, however, there has been investment in finding ways to increase productivity and opportunity for small holder farmers to improve their overall economic opportunities, including supporting rice production which is a particular focus for Ghana.
• Romina Picolotti noted that IGSD is supporting countries to access the IMF's Resilience and Sustainability Trust as a way of mitigating the barrier of access to financing, and invited countries to contact her for support.