Ghana will receive $103.4 million from the World Bank for its Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining project.
The funds will be directed towards the reversal of land degradation and strengthening integrated natural resource management in about three million hectares of degraded landscapes, working with communities in the Northern Savannah Zone and the cocoa forest region, a statement from the World Bank said on Tuesday.
In Ghana, the cost of unsustainable land use for agriculture, forestry, and mining is 2.8 per cent of the 2017 national GDP. Ghana’s natural resource base will be destroyed over time if the current extraction techniques remain unchanged, with fewer opportunities to sustain growth and shared prosperity.
“The project will help boost post-COVID-19 economic recovery, create jobs and secure livelihoods in some of the poorest parts of Ghana by focusing on agricultural productivity, ecosystems management and sustainable small-scale mining,” said World Bank Country Director, Pierre Laporte.
The Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining project will focus on land-use planning for integrated landscape management and promote sustainable mining by helping formalize artisanal and small-scale mining.
It will also support sustainable land, water, and forest management activities in the climate-vulnerable target landscapes.
“The project aims to place landscapes and mining sector management on a path that would transition from degraded landscapes, poverty, and low productivity toward one of the resilient landscapes that optimise the ecosystem functions for better livelihoods and more sustainable economic returns,” said World Bank Practice Manager, Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy, Sanjay Srivastava.