Harnessing the Power of Local Government for Effective, Inclusive, and Equitable Climate Adaptation

Harnessing the Power of Local and Equitable Climate Adaptation: A Proposal for the Accra Metropolitan As sembly (AMA)

Harnessing the Power of Local Government for Effective, Inclusive, and Equitable

Climate Adaptation:

A Proposal for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA)

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

Policy Workshop Report

April 2023

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Devanne Brookins

Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

Authors

Martina Bergues | Rouguiatou Diallo | Ariza Francisco | Kazim Habib

Claire Kaufman | J. Sebastián Leiva | Auri Minaya | Jessie Press-Williams

Ryan Sasse | Dominick Tanoh | Rain Tsong | Evelyn Wong

We dedicate this report to Seydi, our 13th team member. May you grow up in a world that is truly inclusive and equitable for all.

Sunset over the Accra skyline.

Cover photo courtesy of Adobe Stock Stock Photo ID: 341274506

1 | PREFACE

This report is the final product of a Policy Workshop sponsored by the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), fulfilling partial requirements for the Master in Public Affairs (MPA) degree program. It is the result of the work of twelve graduate students advised by Dr. Devanne Brookins, Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.

The report’s information and recommendations stem from months of research and interviews with current and former government officials in the city of Accra, members of civil society, academics, researchers, and officials of international institutions like the United Nations. A list of stakeholders interviewed is included at the end of the report. The group conducted in-person and virtual interviews in both Accra, Ghana and Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

Throughout the report, we make reference to some of those we interviewed by name, indirectly by title, or merely as a workshop interview. This was done at the request of those we interviewed to allow them to speak freely and for us to be able to use the information they provided to us in this report. The report, however, does not necessarily reflect the views of any individual interviewee, Princeton University, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, or any person or their affiliated organizations who supported the workshop.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are deeply grateful to the many people who supported us during our Policy Workshop. We thank the government officials, researchers, and others who generously lent their time and expertise to us. Their contributions to our understanding of the climate adaptation space in Accra was invaluable.

We would like to thank Dr. Devanne Brookins for her mentorship throughout the workshop. This final report would not have been possible without her expertise and thoughtful recommendations. A special thanks is also given to Eden Tekpor Gbeckor-Kove and Lydia Sarfoa from the AMA, whose on-the-ground support and hospitality while we were in Accra allowed us to make the most of our time in the city. Finally, we are thankful to Dean Amaney Jamal, Senior Associate Dean Paul Lipton, Associate Dean Karen McGuinness, Associate Director Tam Le Rovitto, Finance and Operations Manager Shannon Presha, and the rest of the SPIA team who helped make this workshop possible.

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ACRONYMS

• AMA: Accra Metropolitan Assembly

• CAP: [Accra] Climate Action Plan

• GAR: Greater Accra Region

• GARCC: Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council

• GARID: Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project

• GHAFUP: Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor

• GYEM: Ghana Youth Environmental Movement

• HRBA: Human Rights-Based Approach

• IOs: International Organizations

• MER: monitoring, evaluation and reporting

• MTDP: Medium-Term Development Plan

• MMDAs: Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies

• NAP: National Adaptation Plan

• NCCAS: National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy

• NUP: National Urban Plan

• NCCP: National Climate Change Policy

• NADMO: National Disaster Management Organization

• NDC: Nationally Determined Contribution

• NGOs: Nongovernmental Organizations

• PD: People’s Dialogue

• SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals

• UN: United Nations

• UNDP: United Nations Development Programme

• UNFPA: United Nations Population Fund

• UN-Habitat: United Nations Human Settlements Programme

• 100RC: 100 Resilient Cities

4 | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa the urgent realities of climate change – including flooding, drought, sea level rise, and extreme weather events – are becoming increasingly evident. Cities face a disproportionate level of current and future climaterelated risks, and thus city governments play a key role in responding and adapting to climate change. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. This rapidly urbanizing city is challenged by a precarious position along the coast and a river basin that regularly floods, disproportionately impacting communities living in informal settlements. The growing interconnection of urban poverty and vulnerability highlights the need for a cross-sectoral and strategic response from the local government, in addition to national and international actors.

In this report, we analyze the strengths, challenges, and opportunities of Accra’s local government unit, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), to respond to climate change in a way that is inclusive to all residents. The AMA is expected to be both the local implementer of central government policies and the primary administrative authority for constituents living across formal and informal settlements, within the constraints of limited financial and human resources. Recent decentralization has, however, dramatically reduced the AMA’s jurisdiction and, subsequently their capacity to raise revenue and implement projects.

Within this challenging context, the purpose of this project is to support the AMA in enhancing its capacity to implement its climate adaptation agenda with meaningful engagement of marginalized communities, focusing on informal settlements. Together with the AMA, we identified two strategic objectives to guide our work:

• Objective 1: Develop a strategy to position the AMA as a global champion of effective local

government ownership, coordination, and implementation of their urban climate agenda.

• Objective 2: Build a framework for effective and sustainable engagement between the AMA and community stakeholders.

This report is the culmination of research and interviews conducted between September and December 2022, including a week of fieldwork in Accra. During this period, we completed interviews with 16 key actors within the AMA, national government, international organizations, civil society stakeholders, and academia. We complemented interviews with literature reviews, case studies, and theoretical frameworks.

Our research highlights three strengths of the AMA that provide the foundation for effective implementation of climate adaptation plans:

1. The AMA has built a climate agenda aligned with global climate priorities, including Ghana’s national commitments under the Paris Agreement and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This positions the city as a focal point for international investments in climate resilience.

2. Climate-related policies have been incorporated into AMA’s local plans. Our analysis of the AMA’s Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP) found significant inclusion of Climate Action Plan activities, particularly for solid waste management and wastewater.

3. The AMA engages with its residents on a regular basis. Community engagement is seen as essential, aiming to create a sense of shared responsibility. The majority of existing engagements are sensitization or education efforts, although the AMA does occasionally involve community actors in designing policies.

Despite these strengths, we identified five challenges that impede climate adaptation. These challenges are not exhaustive but reflect concerns internal to the AMA.

1. The climate agenda is fragmented across departments and lacks effective coordination, despite an overarching planning focus on climate change. Climate actions are not streamlined between departments which are inefficient and makes the AMA less attractive for external funding.

2. The AMA faces budget and staff constraints as they seek to accomplish their ambitious climate plans. Internal revenue generation has been significantly reduced by decentralization. The community’s eroded confidence in local authorities’ capacity to deliver services has made the collection of funds more tenuous.

3. There is a low implementation rate of climate action priorities in the MTDP. Most of the activities identified in the Climate Action Plan (CAP) have not been mapped into the MTDP 2022-2025 for implementation, with a few departments, such as waste management, taking up the bulk of the activities.

4. Activities are not well-linked to strategic outcomes and impacts. In both Accra’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) and the MTDP, activities are usually listed at a high level and do not contain specific indicators or milestones, challenging implementation and monitoring.

5. Current community engagement is focused on informing and consulting, rather than partnering and empowering. It tends to be primarily one directional, and marginalized populations are rarely included in the design stage.

This report presents four recommendations that seek to address the outlined challenges so that the AMA can implement their climate adaptation agenda in a way that is sustainable, effective, and equitable for vulnerable populations.

1. Establish a designated unit of Climate Resilience and Sustainability, that will steer the climate change agenda at the AMA level. We present different options to create this unit, and illustrate the tradeoffs of long-term actions, short-term wins, and sustainability considerations.

2. Leverage external stakeholders to attract funding to advance the city’s climate action. The Mayor and the proposed unit of Climate Resilience and Sustainability could work together to identify new revenue streams and position Accra to attract international funding.

3. Ensure that climate adaptation plans are actionable, equitable and inclusive. The AMA could strengthen strategic planning to ensure annual action plans provide detail for step-bystep implementation, incorporate a monitoring, evaluation and reporting (MER) framework to evaluate outcomes regularly and budget time and resources not only for activities and also for data collection and evaluation.

4. Transform the AMA’s community engagement approach into community empowerment. This means implementing a community engagement framework that formalizes the AMA’s intention to engage informal settlements, convene community stakeholders, and use participatory processes to incorporate community feedback into proposed interventions.

Through our recommendations, we aspire to steer the AMA towards localizing its climate agenda in a way that will propel and solidify Accra’s regional and global leadership on climate action. Raising the Mayor’s profile internationally could help Accra attract more attention and resources. The design, coordination, and implementation of climate adaptation projects rooted in co-production with marginalized communities will avoid maladaptation and improve mutual trust and collaboration between the AMA and its most vulnerable community members. With streamlined and mainstreamed climate agendas, the AMA can use its limited resources more efficiently.

5 | CONTEXT

This section provides some of the necessary context for our analysis of urban climate adaptation in Ghana and the city of Accra. It briefly covers the main climate change challenges, including flooding, solid waste management, and climaterelated vulnerabilities. The section also introduces our client, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), who is the main local government institution tasked with responding to climate change issues in Accra.

This section addresses the following five areas:

i. Climate Change in Ghana

ii. Climate Change in Accra

iii. Climate and Informality in Accra

iv. Climate and Local Government

v. Climate and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly

CLIMATE CHANGE IN GHANA

Over the last 50 years, Ghana has had three major droughts and 19 flooding events. The average temperature of the country has already increased more than 1 degree Celsius since 1960.1 Flooding has become a perennial problem, and the Ghanaian government recorded over 300,000 people directly affected by flooding in 2020. 2 Landmark flooding in 2015 led to the deaths of 200 people when a flooded gas station in Accra exploded.3 Unfortunately, climate models predict increased drought, rainfall, and flood events for Ghana in the coming years.4

Since 1995, the government of Ghana has implemented over 40 climate adaptation-related policies, strategies, and plans.5 In 2012, the government adopted the first major policy on climate change, the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (NCCAS)6, and the first major policy on urbanization, the National Urban Plan (NUP).7 In 2013, the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP)8 was adopted to provide strategic direction to synthesize national aspirations for adaptation and mitigation.

In 2015, as part of the global Paris Agreement, Ghana committed to a greenhouse gas reduction of 45% by 2030 on the condition that external support is received, with the goal to increase resilience and decrease vulnerability. This goal and strategy are outlined in its National Determined Contribution (NDC, 2015) and the National Climate Change Master Plan Action Programmes for Implementation (2015– 2020).9

Ghana’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP), launched in 2020, brings together various adaptation planning efforts from different sectors, subnational structures, and scales of decision-making to medium- and longterm adaptation needs. Ghana received funding from the Green Climate Fund to implement the NAP within a 36 months period.10 11 The NAP process has two main objectives: to reduce vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change by building adaptive capacity and resilience; and to facilitate the integration of climate change adaptation into fiscal, regulatory development policies, programs and activities. It was built from the 2018 NAP Framework, which proposed a more sectoral-based approach to climate change adaptation planning in Ghana, with the EPA coordinating the development of an overarching NAP, and adaptation priorities identified for key sectors such as agriculture, forestry, water, energy, gender, and health.12

Today, Ghana’s MTDP identifies building resilience to threats as one of its six overarching goals and includes responding to climate change as a priority focus for the country.

“Climate forecasts and climate change scenarios for the country predict a more severe and frequent pattern of such drought and flood events. At present, there is broad international consensus that even if the world makes a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the lag in the climate system means that the world is faced with decades of climate change due to the greenhouse emissions already put into the atmosphere from industrialization activities.”

- NCCAS 201

CLIMATE CHANGE IN ACCRA

Accra’s central climate adaptation issues revolve around flooding and solid waste management. More than half of the flooding incidents in Ghana since 2001 have affected the Greater Accra Region and will only become more common with climate change and increased rainfall.13 Flooding has significant economic and health impacts, especially when it forces the city to shut down as roads become impassable, and contaminated waterways put people at risk of diseases, such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. From 2001-2015, floods in Accra caused over 250 deaths and displaced over 178,750 people.14

The issue of flooding in Accra is partly due to and exacerbated by limited drainage and solid waste management infrastructure. The AMA has struggled to keep up with Accra’s solid waste generation, which is currently at 1,645 tonnes per day, amounting to an estimated generation rate of 0.72 kg per person per day.15 All of Accra’s waste disposal sites are currently closed; thus, collected waste is transported from Accra to Kpone landfill in Tema, approximately 37 kilometers away. The landfill’s capacity is 700 tonnes per day, but it receives about 1500 tonnes per day, of which more than two-thirds come from Accra. Uncontrolled dumping and open burning are also common in Accra. Uncontrolled dumping happens in abandoned stone quarry sites, gouged natural depressions in the ground, old mining areas, or man-made holes, while open burning occurs at some of the open dumps, particularly during the dry season.

Overall, waste management services in Accra are inadequate and face challenges such as insufficient financing, poor cost recovery, and institutional weaknesses.16 Gaps in service coverage are filled in by informal waste collectors. Waste collection has largely been asymmetrical, with poorer communities suffering the burden of poor solid waste management services. Without effective solid waste management, drainage gets clogged, and the hazards of flooding become more extreme.

CLIMATE AND INFORMALITY IN ACCRA

By some estimates, over 90% of communities at risk of flooding in Accra live in informal settlements – over 370,000 individuals.18 The Odaw River Basin has the highest flood risk in the area and contains 80% of Accra’s informal settlements, including Agbobloshie and Old Fadama (see Map 1).19 Despite this, informal settlers experience varying degrees of marginalization that exclude them from climate adaptation initiatives. While sometimes included in collaborative engagement, the forced removal of informal settlers and sellers from public space has led to continuous struggles over land. 20 Specifically, a series of evictions and demolitions in 1993 and

MAP 1: Flood Vulnerability in Informal Settlements near the Odaw River17

2002 attempted to reduce the number of informal settlements. This has made it difficult to consistently and genuinely partner with informal settlements.

Informal settlements are seen with different levels of legitimacy by local authorities and the general public. This informality makes the government’s role as a provider of basic services unclear. For instance, informal settlements are often overlooked in the provision of solid waste collection services. This challenge is exacerbated by the lack of accurate population estimates. After working with Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) such

People’s Dialogue, informal settlements carried out enumeration efforts to self-report the population. These enumerations returned population estimates that exceed those provided by the AMA (see Table 1 vs. Table 2). This means that the issues of urban flooding in informal settlements may be underestimated and not properly addressed.

Ultimately, the confluence of informal settlements and flood risk underlies the growing interconnection of urban poverty and vulnerability, and requires a cross-sectoral, intentional, inclusive, and strategic response.

TABLE 1: AMA’s estimated population of slums within its boundaries21

TABLE 2: Slum Dwellers International’s estimates of population and number of structures in 201622

CLIMATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Local governments, in general, bear much of the burden of addressing climate-related damages and adapting to current and future challenges. For example, housing and infrastructure damaged by floods, storms, and heat damage, are under the purview of cities. In Ghana, the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) are the local government agencies with this responsibility.

A comprehensive decentralization program marks the history of democratic Ghana. The Constitution states that the country “shall have a system of Local Government and Administration which shall, as far as practicably, be decentralized.”24 The principle of decentralization was further enshrined in the Local Government Acts of 1993 (Act 462) and 2016 (Act 936), which delineated the creation and regulation of the MMDAs, which serve as administrative and decision-making units with deliberative, legislative, and executive functions.

Under the Ghanaian Constitution, MMDAs are composed of elected and appointed officials. Twothirds of the members are popularly elected, while the Ghanaian President appoints the remaining onethird of the assembly members. The Mayor, known as Chief Executive, is appointed by the President with the prior approval of not less than a two-thirds majority of the members of the Assembly present and voting at the meeting.

Decentralization has greatly increased the number of MMDAs, from 110 in 2000 to 261 in 2022. The AMA is now one of 261 current MMDAs in the country, and one of 29 in the Greater Accra Region (GAR), and its jurisdiction has been reduced from 10 submetros spanning an area of ~140 km2 to an area of 23 km2 encompassing 3 sub-metros (see Map 2). 25 Although the division of the country aims to bring services closer to citizens, it also diminishes the capacity to raise revenue and implement adaptation projects. 26

Furthermore, decentralization adds an additional layer of challenges, especially when it comes to addressing complex issues such as infrastructure and climate change that transcend administrative boundaries.

MAP 2: Impacts of Decentralization on AMA 2016-Present27

Still, as part of its primary functions, the AMA is responsible for the area’s overall development, including social development, basic infrastructure, service delivery, security, and public safety. According to the Local Governance Act of 2016, the AMA is empowered to define how the district develops, mobilize resources to spur this development, and improve the human settlements found throughout the district. 28

There are 16 Statutory Departments working in different areas in the AMA, including education, health, transport, urban roads, waste management, social welfare, food & agriculture, among others. Although non-exhaustive, Figure 1 summarizes key departments in the AMA with whom we engaged for this research.

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

SOCIAL WELFARE & COMMUNITY

• Responsible for the provision of the infrastructure, services and programs for waste management.

• Solid waste management is a key element of the climate agenda in Accra, responsible for 44% of the emissions.

• Responsible for the engaging with communities and vulnerable populations.

• On the climate agenda, the department helps with sensitization and engagement mechanisms.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT AND PREVENTION

METRO PLANNING AND COORDINATING

• Responsible for preventing and mitigating disasters, including climate threats.

PHYSICAL PLANNING

• Responsible for the providing leadership in the planning, implementation and evaluation of development projects and programs in the Assembly.

• Responsible for many activities, including assisting in preparations of physical plans as a guide for the formulation of development policies, including climate

FIGURE 1: AMA departments engaged in our research

CLIMATE AND THE AMA

The AMA has demonstrated that responding to climate change is a priority. The MTDP, the most important plan for the city, identifies poor drainage systems and poor sanitation as the top two priority development issues for Accra, with recurring flood incidents as a fourth major issue.

Accra-specific plans and programs as well have cemented city leadership with climate change. In 2014, the City of Accra joined the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) initiative led by the Rockefeller Foundation and published a Resilience Strategy Book which outlined a vision of embracing informality as an engine of growth, designing infrastructure to improve the natural and built environments, and optimizing resources and systems for greater efficiency, accountability, and transparency. Although Rockefeller officially ended 100RC in April 2019, many of the recommendations are integrated into the MTDP.

In 2019, the World Bank, in collaboration with the AMA and the government of Ghana, launched the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) project. GARID is intended to improve flood mitigation infrastructure around the Odaw River basin through improved drainage and flood mitigation measures, solid waste management capacity improvements, participatory upgrading of targeted flood-prone low-income communities, and disaster preparedness. 29

In 2018, Accra partnered with C40 cities to develop its Climate Action Plan (CAP).30 Built from a citywide greenhouse gas emissions inventory, it aims to reduce emissions by 27% by 2030 and 73% by

2050. In the First Five-Year Plan 2020-2025, priority actions fall into the categories of solid waste and wastewater; energy, buildings and industry; transportation; land use and physical planning; and mainstreaming climate in development – the sectors that produce the most emissions in Accra.

Through its C40 membership, Accra is also a member of the Inclusive Climate Action Forum, a platform for peer-to-peer exchange, support, and learning that unites C40 cities in a common goal: the implementation of inclusive, local green new deals. This November 2022, the AMA hosted the four-day Inclusive Climate Action Academy.31 Further, Accra has signed the C40 Equity Pledge, committing the city to:

1. Community-led development;

2. Inclusive climate action and infrastructure projects that center low-income and vulnerable communities; and

3. Delivering bold climate action that benefits all residents equitably.32

The AMA does not have an institutionalized and permanent department responsible for climate change. Instead, the climate agenda is distributed across different departments, each contributing to various aspects of the climate agenda. According to one of the non-governmental interviewees, there exists an office for the AMA Chief Resilience and Sustainability Officer, and an office that accommodates the C40 Advisor and a Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety Advisors. However, this unit was not mentioned by AMA staff interviewed and appears to be mostly an externally funded unit for special projects. This indicates a lack of harmonization and institutional integration.

Given the current situation and aforementioned context, the purpose of this project is to support the AMA in enhancing its capacity to implement its climate adaptation agenda and support meaningful engagement of marginalized communities, focusing on informal settlements. For this reason, we have outlined the following two strategic objectives:

1. Develop a strategy to position the AMA as a global champion of effective local government ownership, coordination & implementation of their urban climate agenda.

2. Build a framework for effective and sustainable engagement between the AMA and community stakeholders.

Through our recommendations, we aspire to steer the AMA towards localizing its climate agenda in

POSITIONALITY STATEMENT

We have sought to center our research on what we heard from the government and citizens of Accra, prioritizing actionable recommendations that are sensitive to local context while taking an inclusive approach to incorporating global perspectives and knowledge. Nevertheless, we wish to acknowledge our positions and limitations as graduate students receiving policy training in an elite Western institution, which privileges certain perspectives on development and assumes neutrality and

a way that will propel and solidify Accra’s regional and global leadership on climate action. Our hope is to deliver a clear and streamlined process for the design, coordination, and implementation of climate adaptation projects that is rooted in coproduction with marginalized communities in order to avoid maladaptation and improve mutual trust and collaboration between the AMA and its most vulnerable community members.

This report details the outcomes of this project. The following sections Section 7 Methodology and Section 8 Key Actors provide context on how we approached the research and which actors we focused on, respectively. The following sections Section 9 Analysis of Strengths and Challenges and Section 10 Recommendations present our findings.

distance from the subject observed. While many of us are from the Global South, most have no prior experience in Ghana. While we have made efforts to include diverse stakeholder views, we acknowledge that not all voices are represented in this report. We view this report as a starting point for discussion and action rather than an authoritative assessment. We have included our contact information at the end of the report, and welcome feedback on aspects that we have missed or misunderstood.

7 | METHODOLOGY

This report’s information and recommendations are the culmination of research and interviews conducted between September and December 2022. We interviewed current and former government officials in Ghana, local and international researchers working in urban climate adaptation and informal settlements in the Global South, international organizations staff, and civil society members.

Our project purpose and strategic objectives were co-developed with our client, the AMA. We conducted our research and analysis using a mixed-methods approach, as described below.

i. Literature reviews

Prior to stakeholder interviews, we conducted literature reviews around three themes: urban climate adaptation, informal settlements, and local governance. We developed hypotheses and research questions based on our respective areas of interest, which were incorporated into interview protocols. After we refined the scope of work following interviews, we conducted targeted peerreviewed literature reviews to identify best practices and case studies pertaining to data analysis and policy recommendations.

ii. Interviews

We conducted interviews in person in Accra during a week of fieldwork in October 2022, and virtually in Princeton from September to December 2022. Semi-structured interview protocols were created for each organization type (e.g. government, international organization, academia) to aid consistency for coding themes while providing some freedom for interviewees to surface individual concerns. We recorded and transcribed each interview, and obtained permission for any direct

quotes. A list of those we interviewed can be found at the end of this report.

iii. Data analysis

We collected and analyzed climate adaptation frameworks, national and local development plans, and other relevant planning, budgeting, and reporting documents from the past five years, identifying key themes in climate planning and implementation. We assessed local plans for their alignment with strategic frameworks and the strength of operational detail.

iv. Case studies

We collected case studies across peer-reviewed journals and gray literature (e.g. government reports and non-profit research) on cities in the Global South that addressed the same challenges encountered in the Accra context. In selecting case studies, we focused on extracting transferable lessons as well as illustrating the successes and limitations of these strategies deployed.

v. Analytical frameworks

We used several analytical frameworks to situate AMA’s current climate adaptation and community engagement approaches within global best practices.

Framework 1: Mainstreaming Climate Adaptation

The Wamsler and Pauleit Framework proposes five types of strategies that increase goal clarity and facilitate implementation (see Table 3).33 These strategies could allow the AMA to integrate (“mainstream”) climate adaptation objectives into existing policies in a congruent manner.

TYPE OF MAINSTREAMING DEFINITION EXAMPLE

Managerial

Projects and Programs

Political or high-level support

Regulatory

Collaboration and coordination

The modification of managerial and working structures, including personnel and financial assets to better address and institutionalize aspects related to adaptation.

Integrating adaptation into on-the-ground operations.

Topp-down support to redirect focus by allocating funding, directing responsibilities, or promoting new projects.

Modification of formal and informal planning procedures that lead to the integration of adaptation policies.

The promotion of collaboration with other departments (within the organization) or stakeholders (across organizations) to generate shared knowledge and competence for issues of adaptation.

Framework 2: Locally Led Adaptation

Local actors are aware of the nuanced context in which they operate. Devolving power with local actors increases their awareness of and investment in adaptation, which can lead to longer-term and more effective adaptation outcomes. Figure 2 shows our AMA Community Engagement Ladder, adapted from Arnstein’s Ladder.34 It illustrates the different levels of community engagement, from least to most locally led.

Community engagement is often centered just on the first rung on the ladder, inform, which implies a one-way flow of information. The second rung, consultation, is an important step towards inviting citizens’ opinions, yet when not combined with other modes of participation it offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account. The third rung, involve, includes critical citizen participation, but is at risk of tokenism – involving citizens only to demonstrate that they were involved. The fourth rung, collaborate, involves a partnership with the public working alongside the government, where

Merging departments

Having adaptation goals embedded into daily tasks

Guidance or funding by higher administrative levels

Creating a legal mandate

power is redistributed through negotiation between community members and powerholders. In the fifth rung, empower, community actors have agency over adaptation, rather than merely participating in processes around adaptation. This is participation as delegated power, where governments and those with existing power give up a degree of control, management, and decision-making authority. The sixth and highest rung, local leadership, places the community in charge of their issue; in this case, the climate adaptation agenda. This includes devolving decision making to the lowest appropriate level, addressing structural inequalities, providing patient and predictable funding, investing in local capabilities, building in climate risk and uncertainty, flexible programming and learning, ensuring transparency and accountability, and collaborative action and investment.

In line with our purpose of co-production with marginalized communities to avoid maladaptive outcomes, we have aimed to recommend options that build towards a local leadership of adaptation measures wherever possible.

Information exchange between departments

TABLE 3: Types of Mainstreaming

Adopted from Wamsler and Pauleit (2016). Authors note “the framework can be applied to single municipal departments or other implementing bodies at all levels.

ENGAGEMENT LADDER

Adapted from Arnstein 1969

Devolve decision making to the lowest appropiate level and support communities implementing their agenda.

Framework 3: Human Rights-Based Approach

According to the UN Sustainable Development Group, a human rights-based approach (HRBA) is “a conceptual framework that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights.”35

Support aspirations of the public and delegate responsibility through action teams and leadership development.

HRBAs seek to analyze obligations, inequalities, and vulnerabilities while rectifying discriminatory practices and unjust distributions of power that impede social progress and threaten human rights. This approach helps to promote the longterm sustainability of policies and programs by empowering people themselves (i.e. the “rightsholders”) to directly participate in policy formulation and thus hold accountable those who have a duty to act (i.e. the “duty-bearers”).

In the context of climate change, human rightsbased approaches can be used to:

Partner with the public in each aspect of planning through citizen advisory

• Inform policies and programs around climate mitigation and adaptation at both the national and local levels;

• Guide initial assessments of climate-related vulnerabilities, and then strengthen monitoring and evaluation processes; and

Ensure public wants are understood and taken into consideration through open space meetings, workshops and polling.

• Ensure equitable access to essential information among the affected population and meaningful participation of marginalized groups, without discrimination, in the design and implementation of climate change policy.36

Obtain feedback to make an informed decision through public comments, hearings, focus groups and surveys.

Communicate the issues and planned solutions through newsletters, flyers, websites and meetings.

6 | LOCAL LEADERSHIP

5 | EMPOWER

4 | COLLABORATE

committees, consensus building.

3 | INVOLVE

2 | CONSULT

1 | INFORM

FIGURE 2: AMA Community Engagement Ladder

Why is a human rights-based approach important to policymakers like the AMA?

• Climate change threatens the full and effective enjoyment of a wide variety of human rights.

• Inadequate mitigation and adaptation strategies can lead to significant human rights violations, especially in situations where adequate participation of local communities is not assured or where due process and access to justice is not respected for any necessary displacement/ resettlement.

• By focusing on the rights of those who are most vulnerable due to poverty and discrimination, a human rights-based approach can be a useful tool to complement and strengthen a range of other development efforts seeking to address the climate crisis.37

By using a HBRA in this report’s policy recommendations, we hope to ensure that the needs and experiences of the most marginalized in Accra – women, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and those living in informal settlements – are centered in the design and implementation of the city’s climate policies. International frameworks like HRBAs can be used to drive sustainable and resilient, people-centered development in Accra, creating an opportunity for the city to demonstrate its global leadership in effectively targeting the discriminatory practices and unjust power relations that are so often at the heart of inequitable rights outcomes.

Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock Stock Photo ID: 75565421

8 | KEY ACTORS

Implementation of Accra’s urban climate adaptation agenda is a multiscalar issue that demands coordination between diverse stakeholders. In this section, we detail a non-exhaustive list of stakeholders that are currently involved in Accra’s climate adaptation planning. The key actors, summarized in Figure 3 and expanded upon below, all bring varying perspectives of knowledge, power, and vulnerability that can inform the holistic approach necessary for sustainable intervention. It is important to note that although we have tried to identify stakeholders of particular importance, this is not a comprehensive list.

This section will cover the following stakeholder categories:

1. Local Government

2. National government

3. Intergovernmental organizations

4. Informal settlers

5. Domestic NGOs

6. Customary authorities

7. Academia

8. Private sector

FIGURE 3: Stakeholder Mapping

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

While this report was formally produced for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), our findings acknowledge that the AMA is only one part of a larger local government system unique to Ghana. This system’s structure includes multiple players: the Regional Coordinating Council, Metropolitan Assembly, Municipal Assembly, District Assembly, Sub-Metropolitan District Council, Town/area Council, and Unit Committee (Figure 4).

In the GAR, the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (GARCC) serves as the governing coordinating group that oversees the 3 MMDAs that compose Accra. It is an important liaison between the AMA and other Metropolitan Assemblies in the GAR, as well as NGOs and the national government.38 Although it lacks unilateral policy-making power, it is instrumental

in ensuring that the actions of the disparate stakeholders all support the development of the GAR. Because climate-related disasters naturally cross administrative borders, GARCC will play an important role in ensuring that adaptation efforts are well coordinated between the AMA and other pertinent partners.

The AMA is the lead coordinator of the city’s climate adaptation strategy, and holds the responsibility to respond as outlined in the Local Government Act of 2016. We expand on the strengths and challenges of the AMA in climate adaptation in Section 8, and Section 9 provides recommendations for the AMA as it moves forward. Within the AMA, the Mayor and 19 elected Assembly Members represent the voices of the electorate in local government. This is further separated into 3 sub-metropolitan district councils: Ablekuma South, Ashiedu Keteke, and Okaikoi South, and accompanied by 6 government

FIGURE 4: Structure of Local Government Service39

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Although Ghana maintains a uniquely decentralized political structure, the national government is a critical piece of the climate adaptation puzzle. National-level ministries like the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation house important sub-agencies like the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency and the National Climate Change Committee, which each play an active role in developing climate adaptation priorities that the AMA must consider. Furthermore, the government of Ghana serves as the primary partner of development-focused institutions like the World Bank.

INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

By virtue of its economic and political influence, Accra has successfully joined multiple international institutions that influence its climate adaptation plans. The AMA has been able to benefit from its international partnerships and receives significant technical assistance and funding for climate adaptation from collaborators. This includes the World Bank through the GARID project, which is intended to improve flood mitigation infrastructure around the Odaw River basin. Support for Ghana’s long-term economic solvency will ultimately be an important piece of long-term climate adaptation funding sustainability.

Additionally, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), and the UN Human Settlement Programme (UN Habitat) provide technical and financial support to the central government and the AMA. UNDP’s most relevant initiatives are the Ghana Waste Recovery Platform to help collect data and coordinate waste collection initiatives in the city and the Accelerator Lab, where they are working to address waste management using behavioral insights. UNEP is involved in climate adaptation coordination and funding. UN Habitat is also supporting the creation of a new climate adaptation plan in cities like Accra in accordance

with various development frameworks including the Ghanaian government’s National Coordinated programme of Economic and Social Development Policies (2017-2024), the United Nations Sustainable Development Partnership (2018-2022), the UN New Urban Agenda, and African Union’s Africa Agenda 2063, along with the UN’s sustainable development goals.40

Finally, C40 Cities is Accra’s main partner in their Climate Action Plan and maintains a permanent office within the AMA. They have also been active in outreach to informal waste collectors. Previously, 100RC played a significant role in advising Accra on how to build resistance to climate, economic, and social crises. Its recommendations ultimately helped to shape key planning documents including Ghana’s MTDP. Accra remains a part of the Resilient Cities Network with access to its technical advising.

It’s also important to note that foreign country aid programs, like Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), play a role in financing development programs in Accra as well aimed at climate adaptation.

CUSTOMARY AUTHORITIES

Customary and familial authorities play a significant role in Ghana’s land tenure system through their custodianship of “stool lands’’ and “family lands” respectively. Stool lands are the historical territories of Ghana’s many ethnic groups, while family lands are governed by individual families.41 These authorities have protected rights and ownership of around 80% of the land in Ghana. Although the MMDAs maintain relatively greater power in urban centers like Accra, leveraging these stakeholders could help remove potential grassroots roadblocks and help further formalize and institutionalize planned AMA initiatives. For example, customary authorities and land-holding families can often be more effective community interlocutors than the AMA.42 These stakeholders also have the power to disrupt or delay urban development interventions, such as those requiring infrastructure construction.

Thus, engagement is key for the implementation of climate adaptation initiatives.

DOMESTIC NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOS)

Domestic NGOs facilitate the AMA’s interaction with community members on several subject areas. There are a variety of local NGOs embedded in marginalized communities with wide-ranging expertise, from youth engagement to land tenure to informal work and settlement.

Specifically, People’s Dialogue (PD) – the Ghana affiliate of Slum Dwellers International – has been a key interlocutor over the years between informal settlers’ savings groups and government officials. PD provides technical assistance to informal settlers in their activities and in articulating and disseminating their policy priorities. The AMA routinely approaches PD to assist in the implementation of projects that necessitate community involvement. COLANDEF is another well-embedded local organization focused on issues of equity and land tenure. Additionally, youth organizations, like Ghana Environmental Youth Movement, are important stakeholders in raising awareness about climate change among young people and bringing climate policy priorities to the public debate.

INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

Informal settlers are people who have settled on land that they either have no legal claim to, or in housing that is not compliant with the government regulations. Informal settlements usually lack access to basic services and are cut off from city infrastructure.43 Because climate and housing vulnerability often intersect (e.g. most flood-related vulnerability in Accra is concentrated in informal settlements), informal settlers are key actors in the climate adaptation process. As informal settlers have organized, they have found some occasionally influenced the AMA to recognize this and adopt more inclusive policy interventions, such as collaborative planning of community relocation. As

referenced in Context, several informal settlements lie within AMA boundaries and have vulnerabilities to climate-related disasters.44 By utilizing machine learning data, researchers were able to generate estimated boundaries for informal settlements, as captured in Map 3. While these boundaries may not be exactly correct, they give a sense of how far-reaching the informal settlements are, and, thus how important those communities are to decisionmaking.

MAP 3: Informal Settlements in the AMA45

ACADEMIA

Academic institutions play an important role in both the development of the urban climate agenda and engagement with informal settlements. Institutions such as the University of Ghana and the University of Cape Coast have already provided valuable research and technical assistance in the development of guiding documents such as the Accra Climate Action Plan, informing climate risk analysis and waste management procedures respectively.46

Interviews with representatives from the University of Ghana emphasized how academia can be both an effective and limited interlocutor when engaging with informal settlements about climate adaptation plans. For example, researchers from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and the University of Ghana successfully engaged with informal waste collectors for a research project.47 This information was then used to develop a more formalized process of engagement with waste collectors. While this research has positive domestic impacts Ghanaian universities’ reliance on foreign funding can potentially tilt research away from explicit local priorities towards larger global interests.48

PRIVATE SECTOR

Private formal businesses and informal workers are key partners for the AMA in the delivery of services to its constituents. They are also an important MTDP of funds for the AMA through their payment of fees, property income, and licenses. In 2017, only 4% of solid waste was collected by the AMA, while 42% was collected by private sector companies and 29% was collected by “Kaya Bola,” or informal waste collectors who largely operate in middle to high-income areas.49 Still, a large fraction (between 10 to 26 percent) of solid waste remains dumped in the community.50 The AMA has started developing links with informal workers to close the gap in solid waste collection, thus providing a baseline for deepening engagement and developing a model for collaboration.

This list cannot cover the wide range of stakeholders who are working on and impacted by Ghana’s climate adaptation initiatives. It does, however, offer some perspective on both the wide range of interests involved and the unavoidable complexity of respecting the different priorities, perspectives, and societal power of all of these actors. Despite this complexity, a sustainable and equitable adaptation approach rests on engaging with all of these interests.

9 | ANALYSIS OF STRENGTHS AND CHALLENGES

In this section, we highlight three primary strengths that provide the foundation for effective implementation of climate adaptation plans in Accra. We also identify five challenges that might impede climate action. This following analysis orients the underlying need for our recommendations responding to Strategic Objectives 1 and 2.

This section describes those strengths and challenges, and the following section presents recommendations.

Strengths:

i. The AMA has built a climate agenda aligned with global climate priorities.

ii. Climate-related policies have been incorporated into the AMA’s local plans.

iii. The AMA engages with its residents on a regular basis.

Challenges:

i. The climate agenda is fragmented across departments and lacks effective coordination.

ii. The AMA faces budget and staff constraints as they seek to accomplish their ambitious climate plans.

iii. There is a low implementation rate of climate action priorities in the MTDP.

iv. Activities are not well-linked to strategic outcomes and impacts.

v. Current community engagement is focused on informing and consulting, rather than partnering and empowering.

STRENGTHS

i. Strength 1: The AMA has built a climate agenda aligned with global climate priorities.

Accra’s CAP links to national climate plans and global priorities, and has proved integral to

positioning the city as a leader in climate adaptation. The CAP maps out the path that Accra’s city government, citizens, and businesses must take to deliver an emissions-neutral and climate-resilient city by 2050, consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. At the national level, Ghana has committed to unconditionally reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2030, and by 45% by 2030 if certain conditions are met, compared to a business-as-usual scenario. Accra’s CAP lays out twenty priority actions to help limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above the average preindustrial temperature.

Accra’s CAP is also aligned with the Paris Agreement’s global goal on adaptation (Article 7) through Ghana’s National Adaptation Plan in process. Adaptation plans and initiatives at the local level, like those around solid waste and wastewater and resilient buildings, will likely be integrated into the NAP. This means proactive climate change–induced adaptation planning at the city level could benefit city residents by translating the goals into the larger national plans. The NAP will ideally serve as a guide to address Ghana’s medium- and long-term adaptation needs, and Accra’s adaptation planning through the CAP and 100RC only facilitates greater collaboration and coherence.

Accra’s CAP is also aligned with the 17 SDGs, adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 as part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDGs’ targets provide local governments with the global backing and resourcing needed to increase their capacities for effective climate change-related planning and management, particularly in lower middle income countries like Ghana.51

Additionally, by joining transnational municipal networks like C40 and 100RC, Accra has accessed knowledge sharing, formal support, and funding connections.

ii. Strength 2: Climate-related policies have been incorporated into the AMA’s local plans.

Not only is the AMA climate agenda well-aligned with international and national priorities but it has also been mainstreamed into local development plans, particularly the Medium-Term Development Plan (2022-2025). In this process, the AMA localized the agenda based on the needs of its citizens.

This is reflected in the development priorities (chapter 2 of the MTDP), whereby AMA consulted with the community to prioritize issues based on their severity, intended benefits, multiplier effects on the economy, links to basic human needs and rights, and sustainable spatial development.

Based on this approach, several climate and environmental issues were identified as high priority: poor drainage systems were listed first, poor sanitation second, the recurrent incidence of flooding fourth, and inadequate dumping sites at nineteen. Taking citizens’ climate-related needs as input into development planning is a crucial component of responsive local government, and the AMA has built a strong foundation for this.

True to its prominence in the development plans, solid waste management in the AMA has seen real progress and holds promise to be a central piece of future climate adaptation efforts. The AMA has been included in a number of large projects focused on solid waste management, including the World Bank-funded GARID project, the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant, and the Waste Management Department’s plans for a waste-to-biogas plant. These projects demonstrate that the AMA has a history of understanding the importance of solid waste management. Moving forward, solid waste management has the potential to act as much of the foundation of the AMA’s climate agenda, perhaps even the central focus of climate action in the AMA, reframing an issue of public health within its larger plans for climate adaptation.

iii. Strength 3: The AMA engages with its residents on a regular basis.

Essential to the Mayor’s vision of shared responsibility for a new Accra is community engagement across local government programs. The AMA already engages with its residents on a regular basis to ensure its actions are representative of community interests. Traditionally, these engagements follow two dominant approaches. The first is sensitization or education efforts, which comprise a majority of the AMA’s engagements around policies and programs like promoting hygiene and sanitation.52 The second approach is less frequently practiced in isolated cases, where community actors are involved in the design-stage of policies. For example, in summer 2019, the AMA collaborated with residents of Old Fadama to organize an eviction agreed upon and carried out by the People’s Dialogue and other community organizations.53 The communitydesigned aspect of the AMA’s actions here defused tensions that otherwise would have been present in this difficult situation.

The Mayor’s leadership in community engagement efforts has pushed forward both normative and programmatic changes in how the AMA engages with informality. In September 2022, the AMA on behalf of the Mayor organized the first stakeholder conference geared towards deepening dialogue with the informal waste sector.54 The 19 elected Assembly Members and 6 government appointees in the three sub-metropolitan district councils also play a critical role in outreach to these areas.55

“My vision is to build a new Accra; a model city whose inhabitants have a shared responsibility in making it modern.”

- Hon. Elizabeth Kwatseo Tawiah Sackey, October 7, 202156

i. Challenge 1: The climate agenda is fragmented across departments and lacks effective coordination.

The first challenge to implementing the AMA’s climate agenda is the need for more clarity around leadership, ownership, and coordination mechanisms. In the official structure of AMA which is prescribed by the Local Governance Act, 936 (2016), there is no department for climate change. During our field interviews, stakeholders pointed to different actors or departments responsible for the climate agenda, illustrating the challenge of ownership.

The AMA Resilience Unit, established with 100RC, was never institutionalized into the formal AMA structure, and the position of Chief Resilience and Sustainability Officer - created with 100RC - has changed hands about every 1-2 years. Even though the CAP defined the Resilience Unit as having the leading role, none of the AMA’s formal departments acknowledged this unit in our interviews. The CRO, C40 advisor, and Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) officers are all currently externally funded and seem to be focused on special projects. The CAP also recommended reviving the Resilience and Climate Change Steering Committee to oversee the Plan. Yet, the Committee is still not operating, a reality that diffuses the monitoring and coordinating role.

Seeing as there is no permanent and clearly defined governance structure within the AMA to monitor and coordinate the climate agenda comprehensively and effectively, the result is a fragmented agenda across multiple departments responsible for various aspects of the climate agenda, like waste, transportation, energy, green space, and water management. Furthermore, the absence of a specific governance structure creates additional challenges for streamlining and harmonizing actions between departments, maximizing scalability gains, and preventing the

repetition of activities. Finally, the lack of a central department makes it harder to attract funding and resources from global partners, who are looking for focal points and progress reports.

ii. Challenge 2: The AMA faces budget and staff constraints as they seek to accomplish their ambitious climate plans.

While large fractions of the AMA’s budget come from the District Assembly Common Fund and the central government of Ghana, about half of the AMA’s annual 40 million GHS budget is generated internally.57 However, the dynamics of internally generated funds (IGF) appear to have changed with multiple rounds of decentralization, shrinking the AMA significantly. One AMA official noted that the AMA has lost a number of revenue MTDPs, including the airport and surrounding hotels that have challenged its ability to sustain itself through IGF. Additionally, the changing boundaries of the AMA have created confusion over, and at times conflict around, which local authority has jurisdiction, and therefore collection rights, over which area. The community’s eroded confidence in local authorities’ capacity to deliver services has made the collection of funds more tenuous.

Challenges in raising IGF make it difficult for the AMA to follow through on its CAP commitments. Based on our mapping of the climate-related activities in their MTDP and including 70 million GHS of expected donor funds not detailed within the budget, the city has allocated 73 million GHS for solid waste and wastewater. Additionally, the city has allocated 4.8 million GHS for transportation, 3 million GHS for mainstreaming the climate change threat in the development process, 880,000 GHS for land use and physical planning, and 30,000 GHS for energy, buildings, and industry.58 These significant monetary commitments will require significant capacity in IGF generation.

Clarifying the AMA’s jurisdiction and establishing a more trusting relationship with the communities it serves is crucial to improving its capacity to generate funds internally. However, this must be

matched by building capacity in human resources.

Throughout our interviews, AMA heads of departments and personnel consistently lamented staffing shortages, sometimes connected to the loss of funds through decentralization. Moreover, political changes and low compensation have led to frequent staff turnover. Therefore, to meet staffing needs, departments draw significantly on national volunteers from the National Youth Volunteer Program. While these volunteers represent a pipeline of human capital, their low tenure makes it difficult to keep institutional knowledge within the AMA. This loss in knowledge is further compounded by a lack of clear dissemination of strategy from senior staff members down to the lower-ranking staff.

Ensuring the inclusivity of the work towards these climate adaptation commitments is another challenge. In addition to the community-facing staff of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, some AMA staff are designated community liaisons, and some are naturally involved in the community. This ranges from the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development to the Physical Planning department’s staff working in the field to catalog the city’s physical assets. Although these staff members might not be directly responsible for community engagement, their interactions with the community directly impact community members’ perception of the AMA. Therefore, it is important to build capacity across departments around community interactions. Identifying all community-facing staff members, training them, and enabling peer-to-peer sharing across departments could greatly improve the AMA’s community engagement capability. This is further discussed in Recommendation 4.

DEEP DIVE: CLIMATE FINANCE

The AMA’s limited budget and resources constrain its ability to carry out climate adaptation projects. Many cities in the Global South, like Accra, struggle to gain access to additional financial resources from outside MTDPs (public and private) to respond to climate change - financial resources often referred to as “climate finance.” Only 10-20% of global urban climate investments are funded by international financial institutions, UN climate funds, or private investors.59

City governments may face common barriers to accessing climate finance.60 For example, local governments struggle with the capacity to prepare project proposals, while the World Bank and UNDP cite the lack of appropriate projects as a barrier to scaling up urban climate finance. Projects need to be scoped within the administrative boundaries of city governments, an issue that may prevent the AMA from receiving funding for large infrastructure projects due to its limited geographic jurisdiction.

Increasing availability of subnational climate finance will require reforms at the national scale as well as potentially more innovative financing mechanisms; however, the AMA can take some actions to increase the likelihood of receiving funding. Accra has been able to successfully access external climate finance

resources through projects such as the C40 Cities Finance Facility (to conduct solid waste separation and community composting), the World Bank’s GARID project, the 100 Resilient Cities network, and other projects. Other Global South cities have found external support for project preparation facilities (PPFs) to be helpful in preparing projects. PPFs provide city governments with assistance to prepare project applications for financing. One example is through the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance’s Project Preparation Action Group.61

In addition to being difficult to secure, external funding can lead to long-term risk for city governments. A reliance on external funding has contributed to the fragility of climate adaptation initiatives in Accra. The shuttering of 100 Resilient Cities meant that the three years of community engagement and hard work developing a plan was ultimately left behind. It is an indication of the risk governments face relying on private funding for such existentially critical work as planning for natural disasters, social shocks, and climate change. Additionally, the proliferation of plans backed by different funders has led to challenges with policy coherence, especially in the motivation and implementation of these climate adaptation measures.62

iii. Challenge 3: There is a low implementation rate of CAP Priorities in MTDP.

The AMA’s Climate Action Plan has 5 priority areas: (1) solid waste and wastewater, (2) energy, buildings, and industry, (3) transportation, (4) land use and physical planning, and (5) mainstreaming the climate change threat in development processes. For each priority area, there are specific actions and detailed sub-actions.

Through a mapping process in which we reviewed the AMA’s MTDP 2022-2025 document to assess how much of the city’s Climate Action Plan is reflected in their development plan (Figure 5), we determined only about 20% of CAP sub-actions are included in the MTDP as of 2022.63 This shows the gaps between planning and implementation.

As of 2015, the majority of Accra’s emissions came from waste (44%), transportation (30%), and stationary energy (26%). In line with the top priority area, solid waste and wastewater have the highest

number of activities and associated budget in the MTDP. Out of the 27 sub-actions on solid waste and wastewater, 10 are being implemented giving a 37% implementation rate.

By comparison, only 13% of committed transportation and stationary energy sub-actions in the MTDP have been implemented. This presents an opportunity for the relevant AMA departments, such as Transport, Road, and Physical Planning Departments, to align their activities with the CAP.

“Mainstreaming the climate change threat in the development process” is the last CAP priority area, and is muddled among roughly seven different departments implementing community engagement activities. Although this shows that the city recognizes the importance of engaging the communities, most of the citizen and community engagement activities in the MTDP are focused on public education and awareness. A deeper and more meaningful community engagement would improve participation and community buy-in on the city’s climate campaigns and action.

FIGURE 5: Mainstreaming AMA MTDP and CAP

Source: Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), & C40 Cities. (2020). Accra Climate Action Plan: First Five-Year Plan (2020-2025).

Percentage of Climate Action Activity Ref lected in the 2022 Plan

iv. Challenge 4: Activities are not linked to strategic outcomes and impacts.

Taking a closer look at the Accra CAP and the MTDP, it is noticeable that many activities listed are broad and at a high level. As a result, many of the actions still need further planning before they can be implemented effectively. Moreover, many activities do not have specific indicators or milestones, making implementation and monitoring more challenging. For instance, several actions presuppose the elaboration of new plans or strategies.

Of the 35 climate-related activities in the MTDP, only 3 activities have an output indicator. For example, the Waste Management Department plans to “integrate 300 informal waste workers into plastic waste separation in selected communities and institutions in Ga Mashie and Korle Gonno.” This activity demonstrates a clear target community and number of people to be integrated. Adding reasonable indicators also allows for better planning, targeting, and budgeting of activities for maximum impact and effective use of resources.

However, for most of the activities in the plans, there was no mention of specific targets. For instance, the National Commission for Civic Education plans to “educate the public on environmental sanitation”, but their target was not specified. Similarly, the Metro Public Health Department broadly put “create public awareness on channeling of effluent through drains” with no mentioned indicator. Although the division of the country aims to bring services closer to citizens, in the case of the AMA it has also diminished its capacity to raise revenue and has increased the challenge of implementing programs and projects, as revealed by many governmental officials during stakeholder interviews.64 At the same time as resources and capacity were diminished, the AMA is still expected to be both the local implementer of central government policies and the primary administrative authority for its constituents living across both formal and informal settlements. Particularly regarding climate adaptation projects, the challenges are not restricted to the AMA’s new limited boundaries,

which increases the difficulties of implementing and leading the local climate agenda.

With diminished boundaries and fewer resources, the biggest challenge is ensuring that the AMA has the institutional capacity to address climate change while meeting the needs of the most vulnerable populations.

“Why do cities keep producing these frameworks without leaving special amounts for their implementation? [...] Municipalities have all these documents, and we are left to implement them.”

v. Challenge 5: Current community engagement is focused on informing and consulting, rather than partnering and empowering.

While the AMA has invested significantly in community engagement, it has generally done so through informing, consulting, and sometimes even involving in planning.

However, marginalized populations are rarely placed at the center of planning; in other words, included in the design stage. This means current community engagement appears to be primarily one-directional. This can be analyzed through the Locally-Led Framework aforementioned, and the AMA Community Engagement Ladder in Figure 2.

For example, in Old Fadama, government-ordered demolitions removed more than 7000 people in 2003 and 2006, and sediment removal from Korle Lagoon removed another 1000 in 2020. While authorities were trying to help, they did not collaborate or empower residents, unlike their collaborative eviction in 2019, thereby failing to realize the strong tie residents have to Old Fadama beyond just housing - it is also a center of employment, culture, and family.

- Eden Tekpor Gbeckor-Kove, Head of the Physical Planning Department, AMA, 2021

OF STRENGTHS AND CHALLENGES

Another example is Ghana’s flood forecasting and early warning systems. The National Disaster Management Organization and local governments coordinate the flood early warnings, preparedness, and response and recovery activities with the local communities. However, according to our interviews, these activities often fail to reach the last mile on time, and even if they did, there are few officially designated safe havens for flood victims. This means that the important investment in critical early warning systems is not reaching the people who need it most – a challenge that may have been mitigated with more active partnerships with the community in the design stage.

Additionally, infrastructure investments have dominated adaptation approaches, relegating community engagement to a secondary tier. Several large-scale adaptation initiatives are underway, including drainage investments, expanding access to energy-efficient building materials, and paving alleyways in informal settlements. However, most initiatives do not address the realities of the informal areas of the city. For example, the bulk of the $200 million World Bank-financed GARID project is focused on rehabilitating infrastructure to improve the management of the Odaw River.65 Even though there is $7 million designated for community

engagement, it has consisted of design consultations and stakeholder engagement workshops postdecision-making about the infrastructure.

Maladaptive outcomes are unfortunately quite common in addressing the impacts of climate change, and often arise from the failure to comprehensively consider vulnerability, the lack of inclusive participation, the retrofitting of adaptation project goals to match existing development efforts, and the tendency to insufficiently conceptualize ‘adaptation success.’66

A systematic review of climate responses in African cities from 1980-2019 found 52 examples of maladaptation - most pertaining to managing excess rainfall, and many relating to how funding is channeled to wealthier neighborhoods due to lack of oversight and transparency.67 In order to avoid this outcome, it is critical to center the community. Studies have shown inclusive planning leads to higher climate equity and justice outcomes.68

This analysis of both the strengths and challenges of the AMA’s approach to climate adaptation have led us to the following recommendations to address the strategic objectives, guided by the frameworks outlined in the methodology section.

RESPONDING TO COMMUNITY FEEDBACK ON INCLUSION IN CLIMATE AGENDA

In a federation-wide meeting facilitated by People’s Dialogue in October 2022, heads of informal settlement savings groups raised the issue of the lack of consistent enforcement of sanitary and building regulations by local officials. While they recognized that individuals had a responsibility to abide by local regulations, they blamed local authorities for allowing people to circumvent them.69

Furthermore, meeting participants perceived local authorities’ engagement with the community to be too technocratic and dismissive of their knowledge. According to them, community officers engage too late, when decisions have already been made, and not frequently or widely enough (i.e., they only engage a few representatives rather than understanding the heterogeneity of the community). This leads to a feeling of apathy among community members who see the

government’s engagement of the community as a checkmark to satisfy external stakeholders. We encountered a similar discourse among other local civil society actors regarding the local government’s community engagement practices.

Youth groups like the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement, for example, have taken on the issue of climate change in Accra. Although they are invited to partake in climate related events by the government, youth groups frequently feel like their concerns are not taken seriously by the government. Similarly, Ghanaian academics from institutions like the University of Ghana provide technical expertise that can help guide the climate agenda. However, international expertise, primarily from institutions in the Global North, is often prioritized over local knowledge.

10 | RECOMMENDATIONS

This section presents our recommendations to help the AMA better implement its climate adaptation agenda. The AMA will need to implement a combination of strategic and community-based interventions as well as construct additional infrastructure to improve solid waste management and reduce flooding in Accra. Our research and recommendations in this report focus on our 2 Strategic Objectives (detailed in the Introduction):

• Objective 1: Develop a strategy to make the AMA a global champion of effective local government ownership, coordination & implementation of their urban climate agenda.

• Objective 2: Build a framework for effective and sustainable engagement between the AMA and community stakeholders.

To this end, this section presents four recommendations that help address the challenges we identified in the previous section:

Recommendations:

i. Establish a designated unit of Climate Resilience and Sustainability that will steer the climate change agenda at the AMA level.

ii. Leverage external stakeholders to attract funding to advance the city’s climate action.

iii. Ensure that climate adaptation plans are actionable, equitable, and inclusive.

iv. Transform the AMA’s community engagement approach into community empowerment.

In crafting these recommendations, we drew from our interviews, literature review, and analysis. We highlight comparative case studies where relevant to provide additional context on how a city government or institution similar to the AMA has successfully responded to a similar challenge in the past.

We hope that these recommendations will help the AMA achieve its goals in a way that is sustainable, effective, and equitable for vulnerable populations. All of our recommendations together could raise the Mayor’s profile internationally, thus helping Accra attract more attention and resources; streamline and mainstream climate adaptation processes within the AMA; and help the AMA put the processes in place to address infrastructure gaps, such as implementing equitable solid waste management procedures that are responsive to community needs.

i. Recommendation 1: Establish a designated unit of Climate Resilience and Sustainability to steer the climate change agenda at the AMA level.

Why? Better integration of climate action plans into existing projects is not only more effective but resource efficient. The AMA lacks a clear, legal mandate for sub-national adaptation and the local governance act of 2016 does not include a climatespecific planning department, so efforts are usually driven by external funding (IO driven) and subject to political and administrative will.70 After the dissolution of the previous Mayor’s resiliency office, projects were distributed among different departments, leading to inefficiencies and a lack of an important institutional structure to coordinate the climate agenda within the AMA and external stakeholders.71

What? The long-term action is to establish a designated Climate Resilience and Sustainability Unit. This unit would act as the first point of contact for the climate agenda at the AMA, and can increase horizontal cooperation between departments by establishing and facilitating coordination mechanisms, identifying duplication of efforts and resources, and providing the necessary leadership to increase AMA’s ownership of its own climate agenda. It must be institutionalized through a legal

mandate to guarantee that it is sustainable and that political instability does not hinder their efforts. Ideally, this would be a stand-alone unit within the AMA structure, with the majority of the staff being on the government payroll. The management structure would allow mainstreaming of high-level development plans from the MTDP into actionable strategies for all departments within the AMA. Given the legal limitations on the AMA’s ability to create new departments, we recommend that this unit be institutionalized as a unit under the Central Administration Department, which “guides policy formulation, planning, and decision-making at the Assembly.”

The primary proposed duties of this Unit are outlined below, mapped to the Recommendations discussed later in this report:

1. Centralizing requests to mobilize resources and climate financing, such as advocating for the national climate finance architecture to prioritize urban areas like Accra, and coordinating partnerships with internal and external stakeholders (See Recommendation 2 for further details).

2. Establishing and maintaining a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system to ensure the ongoing adoption and implementation of the climate action plans (See Recommendation 3 for further details).

3. Including community voices outside of political representatives to diagnose and propose sustainable solutions. The informal sector should be recognized and integrated as key actors for climate resilience (See Recommendation 4 for further details).

While this unit is under development, the shortterm action is to establish a Climate Resilience and Sustainability Task Force led by an internal climate political champion. This individual should be selected or appointed by the Mayor, and so primarily accountable to internal stakeholders.72 Representatives from key departments that directly or indirectly deal with the climate adaptation agenda, such as transportation, solid waste management, community development, and others, should be included in the task force. Externally funded staff currently working on sustainability issues should also be part of this group, including the Chief Resilience Officer, C40 Advisor, and Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety advisors.

There are inherent trade-offs between long-term actions, quick wins, and the sustainability of any newly-established unit (see Figure 7). We recognize that the Mayor and other actors at the AMA will have to balance many considerations when deciding how much to implement in the short-term and the longterm, and we hope this recommendation provides viable courses of action for different circumstances.

Who? The Mayor will be key to develop and institutionalize this unit. Successful implementation of this recommendation could cement the Mayor’s legacy of spearheading the climate agenda. Political support is key to grant the internal agency the ability to coordinate, solicit information and streamline the climate agenda across the AMA’s departments, especially at its inception.

FIGURE 7: Trade-offs between Climate Resilience and Sustainability Unit versus Task Force

CASE STUDY: CLIMATE CHAMPIONS IN WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA

The Western Cape Province region has experience with significant and costly floods due to climate change and high vulnerability to future climate disasters. Within this province, the City of Cape Town (CCT) is a large, resourceful municipality with about 4 million residents. Hessequa, on the other end, is a small, rural municipality with a population of about 50,000.73 Two vastly different municipalities in terms of resources illustrate that the presence of dedicated environmental champions is key, but these champions can take different forms.

In contrast to AMA, CCT is not a highly resource-constrained environment and is very dependent on natural assets. However, their experience illustrates how proactive administrative champions can improve the integration of climate adaptation policies into sectoral programs. Their Environmental Management Department provided the technical and environmental knowledge that is essential to guide departments and take proactive measures before disaster strikes and before the costs become too high. This department has an Environmental Planning and Sustainability Branch, which coordinates and facilitates the implementation of an environmental strategy that stems from the city’s Development Plans and applies to all directorates and departments. This unit is in charge of elaborating environmental reports, developing strategic environmental partnerships and coordinating environmental education. Their mainstreaming mechanisms provide the City’s decision-makers with an effective policy framework to aim towards integrated environmental sustainability.74 According to researchers, these mechanisms were key to the proactive climate adaptation behavior of the municipality.75

In Hessequa, climate adaptation mainstreaming did not take off until costly floods drove leadership to seriously look into the proper management of climate disasters. Unlike CCT, Hessequa’s approach was reactive. The municipality revised its organizational structure and appointed, among other changes, disaster management officials and an environmental officer under the Department of Development Planning. In a short amount of time, the municipality implemented a wide range of flood, fire, drought, food, and disaster risk reduction measures.

A key factor for their success was the presence of “political champions” through two senior counselors who underwent specific training. In less than five years they brought municipal officials together and were able to implement a mind-set change of the entire structure of the municipality that directly led to initiatives geared towards sustainable development.76

Key Takeaways

Climate champions are crucial. They can raise awareness and coordinate climate initiatives across and between organizations, illustrating others how to address climate change within their own mandates. Dedicated administrative staff play an essential role in mainstreaming the climate agenda, but in resourceconstrained environments, fast change is influenced by political champions, who can allocate adequate resources, prioritize climate policy, and mobilize the staff.

Climate champions at the AMA could take a variety of forms (e.g., this could be the Mayor, Section Chiefs, or other actors). Our recommended Unit of Climate Resilience and Sustainability could be a central location for administrative climate champions and allows for mainstreaming to help Accra achieve the same successful climate adaptation structure as CCT.

ii. Recommendation 2: Leverage external stakeholders to attract funding and expertise to advance the city’s climate action.

Why? The AMA lacks the human and financial resources to implement its ambitious climate plans. Decentralization and other political changes have limited the AMA’s options and tied their hands. Despite the existing efforts within the local government to address areas such as solid waste management, the city’s broader urban climate adaptation agenda is an unattainable goal without the proper resources.

What? To overcome its limited resources challenge, AMA should capitalize on Accra’s local and international climate stakeholder network to attract expertise and funding for climate action.

This may include the following strategies:

1. Position Accra to be the host city of the 2025 or 2028 C40 World Mayors Summit and/or encourage the Mayor to run for the next C40 Chair for a 2-3 years term.

The AMA should take advantage of Accra’s membership in C40 (or similar city networks) to raise the Mayor’s global profile and attract financing and expertise to the city. By applying to host a worldrenowned global event for city mayors, or taking on a leadership role within the city network, the AMA can position itself as a global leader in climate action and one of Africa’s leading innovators around the issue. Consulting with C40’s staff currently embedded in the AMA could be the first step to moving forward with this process. Of note, there has never been an African mayor who has served as C40 Chair, and only one other woman has ever held the position. This is a prime opportunity for Accra to step onto the global stage.

2. Create networks with universities and civil society organizations to solidify the AMA’s knowledge base on climate issues.

Creating spaces where information and expertise are shared between local government, academics, and civil society allow the AMA to delegate tasks and develop a joint research agenda through public-private alliances. In this collaboration, the AMA receives technical assistance to implement its agenda while providing research opportunities (access to government know-how, data, a “living lab”) for academia and CSOs.

The AMA should take advantage of the strong existing academic network in Ghana and consider inviting stakeholders such as the University of Ghana (Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies, IESS), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana Climate Innovation Center, or the University of Cape Coast to partner with in implementing the technical aspects of their climate agenda. Likewise, collaborating with CSOs, such as People’s Dialogue and their international affiliate Slum Dwellers International, would provide the AMA with thought partners and insights as they become more intentional about their community engagement processes.

3. Establish a Steering Committee for Climate Action

Led by the Climate Resilience and Sustainability Unit, the steering committee would aim to provide strategic direction to the city’s climate agenda and monitor its progress through standing, recurring meetings (e.g., bi-monthly). For example, the AMA can leverage the committee to identify external or internal resource-generating opportunities for the city.

In addition to the participation of the Mayor, the steering committee should be composed of informed and high-level advisors from government, private, and non-governmental organizations who volunteer their time and expertise in exchange for the prestige of serving Accra. In this manner, the committee is an opportunity to integrate community and external voices in Accra’s climate policy processes.

Who? The Mayor and the proposed Climate Resilience and Sustainability Unit (and/or shortterm task force) should spearhead these efforts. According to the mainstreaming framework detailed in the Methodology section, leveraging external stakeholders requires that the AMA employ “Political or High-level support” and “Collaboration and Coordination” strategies. To successfully prioritize and implement its climate agenda, the AMA must therefore ensure that it has the full

political support of the Mayor and demonstrate it can collaborate across organizations and sectors to generate the data and resources for issues of urban climate adaptation. Technical guidance from the Climate Resilience and Sustainability Unit promises to maximize the city’s return on investment for how to best use Accra’s scarce resources to identify and capture new revenue streams and expertise and prioritize items within the city’s climate agenda.

Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock Stock Photo ID: 62180789

CASE STUDY: THE AKIBA MASHINANI TRUST AND THE SPECIAL PLANNING AREA (SPA) PROCESS IN NAIROBI, KENYA

Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, has found considerable success in engaging with informal settlements, despite inheriting a costly and centralized bureaucratic structure.

To better engage with informal settlements, Nairobi’s government pioneered a collaborative approach: they engaged universities, international and local CSOs such as Slum Dwellers International and their Kenyan affiliate Muungano wa Wanavijiji, and Muungano’s financing entity, the Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT).77

The Trust is explicitly tasked with helping to coordinate and mobilize funding for informal settlement development projects. The AMT’s financing strategy forms an important pillar of efforts to empower informal settlement development while at the same time limiting direct costs to the local government. The Trust supports savings groups to better mobilize capital for within communities and leverages the positive track records of these savings groups when negotiating with banks for larger development loans.78 By adopting this community centered financing approach, informal settlements and Muungano wa Wanaviji were able to make consistent long-term progress in creating and maintaining infrastructure. Informal settlers were also able to more equitably engage with and plan the development of their settlements with local government because their growing financial organization empowered them to take a more active role in funding, and by extent owning, settlement upgrades.

The local government continues to work with informal settlers and other stakeholders such as the private sector to refine a deliberative process for engaging with informal settlements.79 This process entailed recurrent rounds of local governmental officials and technical advisors meeting with residents in informal settlements and empowering them to co-produce settlement upgrading plans. Residents also conferred final approvals to plans, ensuring that community preference was privileged before implementation.

This approach allowed for a higher degree of participation in the creation of plans that better reflected community goals and needs. Ultimately, this process and the data collected throughout helped to develop equitable and popular plans, even with settlers who previously viewed the local government with mistrust.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Successful engagement requires many stakeholders. By leveraging the financing capacity within communities, NGOs such as Muungano wa Wanavijiji and the AMT were able to help turn informal settlements into active partners of the government who could help financially support more ambitious and sustainable development.

A similar partnership structure could both ease the cost of governing in Accra and improve quality of engagement and service delivery. Accra can also strengthen the capacity of these stakeholders to make relationships mutually beneficial.

iii. Recommendation 3: Ensure that climate adaptation plans are actionable, equitable, and inclusive.

Why? Without defining clear outputs and outcomes for the climate action plan, it is impossible to anticipate the resources required or assess whether the actions are working. When ambitious plans are not prioritized and linked to outcomes, activities have to be postponed due to resource constraints, leading to wasted effort. Instead, describing the expected outcomes for each activity helps ensure that limited resources are directed toward activities with higher impact, increasing the costeffectiveness of the plans.

What? While broad strategic goals may be appropriate for setting long-term vision plans, annual action plans should provide detail for stepby-step implementation. This includes details on where activities will be implemented, intermediate milestones and responsible teams. Not only does linking policy actions to tangible outcomes improve public accountability and government effectiveness, the process of planning the implementation itself is important for anchoring the strategic and ambitious goals in implementable actions. The following actions will help strengthen strategic planning:

1. Use SMART indicators (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely).

All activities and actions (climate-related or not) in the Annual Plan should have a clear output with a milestone or indicator associated and a specific timeline. Each activity should further define the communities and neighborhoods served by that specific initiative, vulnerable groups that will be specifically impacted by the activity, the leaders for each activity, and the costs and funding sources associated with each action and/or activity.

2. Incorporate a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting (MER) framework to evaluate outcomes regularly.

A MER framework can increase participation and engagement, inform decision making, facilitate learning, and make the case for adaptation actions by linking action(s), output, expected outcome, and longer-term impact (see Figure 8). It will help the AMA answer two questions in the context of adaptation: “Are we doing things right?” and “Are we doing the right thing?”80

Best practices in building an MER include involving stakeholders early in the process to gain buy-in, consulting with the community and incorporating feedback, and integrating equity concerns by measuring outputs and impacts on most vulnerable groups. This is further developed in Recommendation 4. Additionally, indicators should be chosen to measure progress and performance, and should balance comprehensiveness with practicality (see Figure 9).

• Define the climate hazard, e.g. flooding

• Determine the goal, e.g. reduce exposure to flooding

• Define the causal chain of change linking actions to their immediate outputs, followed by their outcomes and final impact.

• Define the relevant quantitative and qualitative indicators in terms of process, outputs and outcomes.

• Data collection plan includes what will be collected, when, how often, and by who

• Include baseline where possible and appropriate

• Present the data and analysis to stakeholders for information and knowledge-sharing

• Improves accountability

• Periodic activity to assess changes and performance over time

• Opportunity to assess inclusivity, continued relevance, effectiveness

FIGURE 8: Climate Adaptation Planning and Adaptation Process, C40 MER Framework81

FIGURE 9: Example of intervention logic from C40 MER Framework adapted to an AMA activity 82

3. Budget time and resources for data collection and evaluation in addition to activities.

To avoid extra additional costs and administrative burden, routinely-collected data should be used for the indicators wherever applicable (e.g. official statistics, performance and management information, utilization data). For example, most outputs and some outcomes can be collected annually, while impacts may be a result of multiple factors over time, and thus may be collected and evaluated less frequently.

A plan that details the reporting structure and procedures, including the format, frequency, and purpose of data collection, should be created. It should include tools and templates to streamline the reporting process. There should be a unit (ideally, a designated person within the unit) in charge of keeping track of reporting progress.

Evaluation is a deeper exercise than monitoring which seeks to answer the questions of how the change occurred and what would have happened without the intervention. Evaluation should be participatory, including the voice of citizen stakeholders through surveys, focus groups, or other methods. Enlisting international partners such as the World Bank or C40 to conduct the evaluation exercise can also be valuable, by having an outsiders’ perspective to critically assess the achievements and gaps in progress towards the intended goals and building

MER capacity within AMA by learning with and from global technical expertise.

As urban climate adaptation is a complex and evolving field without established best practices, well-documented evidence from Accra can be useful to guide other cities. This could be another way to further Accra’s status as a global champion in implementing the urban climate agenda.

Who? The Climate Resilience and Sustainability Unit (described in more detail in Recommendation 1) should be responsible for developing and implementing the MER Framework for AMA. This unit would coordinate monitoring and evaluation, and build any public reports to increase accountability.

The respective departments (e.g. transport, waste) should be responsible for proposing and owning the indicators for specific activities. Other AMA units and task forces can give feedback, but the departments in charge ultimately decide what they are able to prioritize and achieve.

Ideally, evaluation should involve not only AMA units but representatives of the public perhaps through the Climate Steering Committee. The evaluation should not be seen as a fault-finding exercise, but as a collaborative form of governance that helps to increase transparency, generate solutions from diverse stakeholders, and mobilize resources.

CASE STUDY: CLIMATE ACTION PLANNING IN SALVADOR, BRAZIL

Many similarities between Salvador and Accra make this a relevant case for learning. First, Salvador is a city of almost 3 million residents with high levels of inequality. Second, as a coastal city, Salvador faces climate challenges related to this reality. Third, Salvador attracts international organizations and NGOs and receives global funding. For instance, this plan was supported by C40, similar to the Accra Climate Action Plan.

In 2020, the city of Salvador officially launched its first Plan for Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change (PMAMC). The Plan aims to transition to carbon neutrality, fostering city resilience and inclusive economic development. Structured around four strategic axes (Inclusive Salvador; Green Blue; Resilient; and Low Carbon), targets are organized into short-, medium-, and long-term actions (see Figure 10). For example, some of the goals for 2049 are: to increase to 15% the number of trips made by bicycle, to have 100% of the public transportation running on cleaner and more efficient vehicles, to recycle 80% of the recyclable domestic solid waste, and treat 36% of the organic waste, to reduce from 45% to 30% the population living in risk areas, among others.83

The PMAMC has a template for each action that includes: a description of the action, an indicator or milestone, the leading institution, partner institutions, the climate threat being addressed, primary and secondary benefits, status, and source of funding. Following this template, Salvador ensures that all actions are actionable, monitorable, and easily understood.

Additionally, aligned with the Brazilian tradition of participatory processes, the PMAMC consulted civil society and citizens throughout the design phase. About 1,300 people participated in 60 consultations, hearings, and events, resulting in 500 contributions.84

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Activities in a climate action plan should be actionable, implementable, and easily monitored. Additionally, Climate Action Plans in unequal cities need to focus on equity, and participatory processes are crucial to designing and implementing inclusive plans.

Salvador’s Plan strongly emphasizes reducing social inequality and increasing climate justice, and has goals to strengthen participation in designing, implementing, and monitoring climate action proposals, particularly focusing on the most vulnerable.

iv. Recommendation 4: Transform the AMA’s community engagement approach into community empowerment.

Why? For local government projects to be implemented effectively, the AMA needs to work towards community empowerment in design and implementation, as outlined in the AMA Community Engagement Ladder (see Methodology). A participatory approach would directly address the challenges that arise from the dominant top-down approach. By receiving and actively implementing community input, the AMA can demonstrate that it is a democratic and representative body for all citizens. This is especially important for vulnerable populations such as informal settlers who have historically had contentious relationships with the AMA marked by exclusion and mistrust. Additionally, collaboration can alleviate resource allocation by splitting the human and financial cost of community engagement efforts. For example, organized community cleanups with the AMA and nonprofits on the ground could lead to long-term normative change where the AMA does not need to continue to allocate resources to sensitization around clean neighborhoods.

What? As identified in Strategic Objective 2, the AMA should implement an Inclusive Community Engagement Framework for effective, inclusive, and sustainable engagement that involves community members when designing, approving, and implementing a project.85

The following 5-step plan would build toward successful adoption:

1. Form a Community Engagement Working Group, led by the Mayor’s Office, Central Planning Unit, and Social Welfare and Community Development.

2. Map Out and Convene Community Stakeholders in Collaborative Spaces.

3. Use information tracked in community discussion, to prepare a technical policy intervention.

4. Return to the community and present technical policy intervention in order to receive community approval or critique.

5. Implement and Evaluate the Policy Intervention

Step 1: Form a Community Engagement Working Group, led by the Mayor’s Office, Central Planning Unit, and Social Welfare and Community Development.

The Community Engagement Working Group would adapt and develop an AMA Framework for Inclusive Community Engagement and test the Framework on a pilot project in climate adaptation. They can invite other relevant AMA departments and staff, like Public Relations, to accommodate their perspectives. One important role of this group moving forward would be to identify all communityfacing staff members, train them, and enable peerto-peer sharing across departments.

This Working Group should express a clear statement of the AMA’s intention to experiment with more collaborative planning approaches is critical. This statement will set the tone for potential stakeholders and help begin a process of building trust that is ultimately critical for communitycentered approaches. This is especially true for informal settlements that are uniquely vulnerable to climate-related crises but also can mistrust the AMA due to the local government’s previous policies of mass eviction and property removal.

Step 2: Map Out and Convene Community Stakeholders in Collaborative Spaces.

A comprehensive approach should include multiple stakeholders such as intergovernmental organizations, local-level nongovernmental organizations, and informal settlements that have often been excluded from planning processes despite their size and impact on flood risk in Accra. For climate adaptation planning specifically, the AMA could map out stakeholders that are influential in informal settlements including civil society groups such as People’s Dialogue, traditional

authorities, academia, private enterprise, and active international organizations such as C40, the UN, and the World Bank.

These stakeholders should be brought together in facilitated conversations where all parties share their intentions, interests, and challenges transparently in order to set a realistic grounding for collaboration. Facilitators for these conversations should include AMA officials and local partners such as influential community members volunteered by the community in order to ensure no potential stakeholders are ignored in the discussions. By engaging interest groups through the Community Engagement Working Group, the AMA can begin to steer more holistic conversations among all parties who are impacted by climate adaptation efforts. These conversations will ultimately feed into more sustainable and satisfactory planning.

It is important that the AMA tracks common feedback and concerns for each policy and project. There should be clear, publicly communicated action items so that community members understand how their feedback will be collected and responded to.

Step 3: Use information tracked in community discussion, to prepare a technical policy intervention.

Once an initial community consultation has been completed, the concerns and desires raised should be used to prepare technical policy interventions. Depending on the nature of the problem, the AMA might receive technical assistance from partners at intergovernmental organizations such as the World Bank or from academia. Adopting this framework will allow AMA to move its climate adaptation initiatives higher on the aforementioned ladder of community engagement.

Step 4: Return to the community and present technical policy intervention in order to receive community approval or critique.

After the completion of an initial planning process, it is critical to follow up with the community to consider their reactions to the prospective interventions. By following up, communities will become more than passive providers of information. They will be empowered as co-planners with the agency to critique and reconsider ideas. Although this style of planning will be more time intensive, it will also significantly increase community buyin and trust because the community had a role in bringing an iteration of the planning to life. Relying on the technical expertise of other stakeholders like academia and intergovernmental organizations will help augment the AMA’s capacity to successfully carry out this collaborative planning. Furthermore, collaborating with these other stakeholders will help take some administrative burden from the AMA as it experiments with engagement strategies that make the most sense for Accra’s unique context.

Step 5: Implement and Evaluate the Policy Intervention

Implementation and evaluation of policy should always follow planning, and various stakeholders can play different roles. In the context of urban climate adaptation, the AMA might focus on zoning and infrastructure installment, while an international group like C40 might support financing efforts and continual technical advising. Concurrently, an NGO like Peoples Dialogue might serve as an interlocutor to keep community support high during the long implementation process. By integrating the perspectives of affected communities, the AMA could ensure its new form of planning is both equitable and pertinent to the wellbeing and sustainability of vulnerable communities.

It is important to note that this approach will have to adapt to Accra’s unique social and political circumstances. After the completion of an initiative, the AMA should carry out an assessment both internally and with key stakeholders to learn what part of the process went well and what can be improved on. Through this iterative process, the AMA will continually develop its own unique set of best practices.

Who? This Framework should be adopted across the AMA and build on top of current legally mandated community engagement. This should be led by a Working Group, headed by the Central Planning Unit, Social Welfare and Community Development, and the Mayor’s Office.

Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock Stock Photo ID: 75673605

CASE STUDY: INFORMAL SETTLEMENT UPGRADING IN SURABAYA, INDONESIA

Similar to Accra, Surabaya, Indonesia faces flooding that impacts informal settlements – especially those along the banks of the river Kali Mas, where there has been pushback against evictions. However, Surabaya has found successes in sustainable, longterm focus on community involvement in settlement upgrading programs.

In 2006, the local government worked at upgrading slum dwellings in collaboration with a local NGO (River Guard) and a local university.86 During the initial discussions, they came to a rule of ‘no settlements within 15m of the river’ in their consultations with a transparent rationale for the boundary. The government then enrolled the local university network to enumerate the settlement and provide methods in which the local community could get involved in the upgrading program. Finally, the government enrolled locally-sourced facilitators for the community forums and consultations from the settlement. After consultations, the government and local settlements solicited funding and technical assistance from the private sector.87 Ultimately, citizen engagement over the long-term led to increased ‘civic responsibility’ indicators including social responsibility for keep kampung street clean and more amenable to participating.

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

Informal settlements and local government should agree and collaborate on the management and upgrading of settlements. Community participation and informal and formal ways of trust-building and consultations is necessary. The affected community should not only be informed of the interventions, but participate in project design and implementation decisions. Other players, including development programs, academia, NGOs, and private sector must collaborate and work intentionally, in the long-term, on informal settlement community development including in upgrading program design and implementation. In Surabaya, long-term engagement led to improved trust and belief in local government, which led to adherence to regulations.

Additionally, political leadership can make a big difference. Mayor Tri Rismaharini (Risma), as the first female mayor, focused on pro-poor, proenvironment, and anti-corruption platform and a no-nonsence decision-maker. Her popularity was informed by people’s trust in her empathy.88 However, without the previous four decades of participatory development efforts, it is unlikely she could have played the change agent.89

Cities around the world and throughout the African continent look to Accra for leadership since Ghana’s Independence in 1957. The Mayor and the AMA are responding to the devastating impact of climate change with action. To address climate issues which harm local populations, the AMA frequently reaches out to the community through the Mayor, Assembly Members, and community liaisons. In recent years, they have pursued more creative and design-stage methods of community engagement.

However, the challenges facing the AMA, as it relates to climate change, are serious and structural, ranging from financing, to land issues, to cycles of decentralization. The AMA needs to assess how to enhance its capacity to implement the climate adaptation agenda and support meaningful engagement and participation of marginalized communities, in particular informal settlements. Despite an overarching planning focus on climate change, no clear or easily definable department owns the climate agenda within the AMA.

Amidst recurrent waves of decentralization and political uncertainty, local policy-makers face the challenge of having to deliver a climate adaptation agenda that is inclusive of and responsive to the needs of the communities most affected by climate change, with inadequate financial and human resources.

The tangible effects of global climate change are usually experienced at the local and increasingly urban level, as demonstrated in the case of Accra. Local governments are then left with much of the responsibility to address damages and adapt to

current and future challenges. Floods, storms, and heat damage housing and infrastructure, affecting health, jobs, and livelihoods and intensifying pre-existing vulnerabilities of disadvantaged populations. Specifically, women, low-income persons, and those in structurally unsafe housing due to informality are faced with particular risks that city leaders must navigate. Accra has witnessed these devastating impacts firsthand. At the same time, it is well-positioned to respond.

Our recommendations in this report highlight opportunities for the AMA to become a global leader in urban climate adaptation by mainstreaming an inclusive and equitable climate agenda and implementing a participatory framework for sustainable engagement with community stakeholders. These recommendations have aimed to address the many obstacles that complicate the AMA’s ability to respond to urban climate issues.

There are challenges that still remain. Due to decentralization, the ability of the AMA to address climate issues is limited. There must be further work collaborating with the other MMDAs in Accra and especially with the GARCC.

Flooding and climate-related disasters do not stop at the boundaries of the newly constituted MMDAs. The guidance that we lay out in this report relies on a whole-of-society approach, one that draws strength from MMDAs, community organizations, trade associations and private enterprise, academia, and informal settlements. This is the most effective way to reach the Mayor’s vision of a new Ghana, with Accra as a city of shared responsibility.

12 | LIST OF INTERVIEWS

We are grateful to the government officials, international civil servants, scholars, and other professionals who took the time to speak with our Policy Workshop. Their comments were invaluable and helped inform the perspectives and recommendations presented in this report. The content of the report does not necessarily reflect their views or the views of their affiliated organizations. Some of those we interviewed requested that their names not be included. They are listed below in alphabetical order by organization.

Accra Metropolitan Assembly

• Development Planning Coordinating Unit

• National Disaster Management Organisation

• Physical Planning Department

• Resilience Office

• Social Welfare and Community Development Department

• Waste Management Department

African Development Bank, Ghana Country Office

C40 Cities

• Josephine Agbeko, City Advisor

COLANDEF

• Nana Ama Yirrah, Executive Director

Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana

• Simon Sovoe, Head of Research, Technology & Innovation Unit

Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GHAFUP)

• Janet Adu, President

Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM)

• Perk Pomeyie, National Coordinator

Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (GARCC)

Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project (GARID)

People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements

• Abdul-Mujeeb Salifu, Programs Manager

United Nations Development Programme, Ghana Country Office

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Ghana Country Office

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Ghana Country Office

• Micheal Ige, Programme Manager

• Youth Leadership (YoLe) Fellowship Programme

University of Ghana, Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS)

University of Ghana Business School (UGBS)

100 Resilient Cities

• Dr. James Mensah, Former Chief Resilience Officer

WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS

Martina Bergues

Martina Bergues is a current Master’s in Public Affairs (MPA) graduate student at Princeton University, focusing on international development. She is originally from Argentina, but grew up in São Paulo, Brazil. Martina worked for five years at the São Paulo City Hall. From 2019 to 2021, she was Director of Digital Services and headed the team responsible for digitizing public services and improving service delivery across the City Government. She recently worked at the Inter-American Development Bank with governance and digital transformation projects. Currently, Martina is an Innovation intern at UN-Habitat, working with the people-centered smart cities programme.

Rouguiatou Diallo

Rouguiatou is a workforce development professional with a focus on social and racial justice through labor organizing. She was born and raised in France to Guinean Fulani immigrants, and has lived and worked in Paris, Montreal, Brussels, and Boston, always with a commitment to tackling socioeconomic inequality. Most recently, she was chief of staff at Resilient Coders, a workforce development organization that aims to build economic resiliency in Black and Brown low-income communities by providing access to software engineering opportunities through training, placement, and support for young adults of color. Prior to joining Resilient Coders, Rouguiatou worked as an analyst for McKinsey & Company, focusing on performance management and impact assessment in the public and social sectors. She is an alumna of the Education Pioneers fellowship and the Juno Leadership Collective. She holds a political science degree from McGill University.

Ariza Francisco

Ariza Francisco is a current Master’s in Public Affairs (MPA) student at Princeton University, focusing on international development, urban and health policy. She was born and raised in Philippines. Prior to Princeton, she was part of the team of the former Vice President of the Philippines Leni Robredo, where she managed a capacity building program for mayors and local government officials. She also worked on a national anti-poverty program in the most far flung areas in the Philippines. She also served as Deputy Head of the Ateneo Policy Center, a university-based policy think tank, where she worked on advancing evidence-based health policy. She also has experience in nongovernment organizations focused on leadership and youth development in Sydney and Mexico City. Ariza completed her internship this summer with UNICEF in Pretoria, South Africa.

Kazim Habib

Kazim was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He majored in political science at the University of Waterloo, graduating with a bachelor’s degree with high distinction. Kazim worked for the then-opposition Liberal Party leading their provincial level youth campaign. Upon Prime Minister Trudeau’s historic election in 2015, Kazim served in a number of roles in Canadian politics, most recently as Adviser to Prime Minister Trudeau. He also served as National Youth Campaign Director for Trudeau’s successful 2019 reelection campaign, and advised Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship and first Somali-Canadian Cabinet Minister, Hon. Ahmed Hussen, in a senior policy role. He spent Summer 2022 at Co-Develop Fund working on digital public infrastructure development programs.

Claire Kaufman

Claire Kaufman is a Master’s in Public Affairs student at Princeton University from Los Angeles, California. Prior to Princeton, she was Planning, Transportation, and Sustainability Policy Advisor for the former Mayor of Tucson, Arizona, where she focused on climate planning, waste management, and water access in a drought region. Other previous roles include green business consultant for local businesses, endangered species protection program manager, and distributed renewable energy researcher. She spent last summer at the Department of Energy focused on international coordination and industrial decarbonization. After Princeton, she plans to work at the intersection of equitable climate mitigation, environmental justice, sustainable cities, and international cooperation. Claire holds a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley.

J.

Sebastián Leiva

Sebastián is a second-year Master’s in Public Affairs (MPA) graduate student at Princeton University with a focus on international development, urban, and climate policy. He was born and raised in Colombia. Prior to joining Princeton, Sebastián worked as the Program Coordinator for a University of California, Los Angeles’ research initiative where he managed a portfolio of governance and natural resource projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. He also spent four years at Innovations for Poverty Action in Colombia, leading and supporting the implementation of impact evaluations on financial inclusion, business strengthening, and crime reduction. Over the summer, Sebastián completed his internship in Mexico City as a Behavioral Design Intern at the World Resources Institute’s The Living Lab for Equitable Climate Action. After graduation, he hopes to work alongside cities in the Global South to make them more sustainable and inclusive. Sebastián holds a M.Sc and B.S in Economics from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.

Auri Minaya

Auri was raised in the Dominican Republic, where she majored in economics. After three years of work in the private sector, she joined the consulting team of the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, where she worked on the design of sectoral studies for educational reform, as well as social and economic policies related to the COVID-19 crisis and post-lockdown economic recovery. After, she joined the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and SMEs, where she designed and developed the first visual database of the manufacturing sector of the Dominican Republic and participated in the design of Dominican Republic’s 2021-2024 National Industrialization Plan. Last summer, she worked as a consultant for The World Bank’s social protection and jobs team.

Jessie Press-Williams

Jessie is from Charlottesville, Virginia, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a degree in mechanical engineering. At MIT, she focused on international development, working with the D-Lab and taking development economics courses. Before Princeton, she lived in Ghana working as a research and program officer at the Aquaya Institute, an NGO dedicated to improving water and sanitation outcomes for poor and vulnerable populations. Previously, Jessie worked as an engineer and project manager for BURN Manufacturing, leading development of innovative electric cooking products in Kenya. She also worked as an associate with IDinsight in Zambia, where she provided data-driven advisory and consulting services on a major sanitation rehabilitation project. Last summer, she worked as an intern for the US Department of State in the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary looking at US-Africa policy.

Ryan Sasse

Ryan is a Master’s in Public Affairs (MPA) graduate student at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, where he specializes in issues of international human rights. This past summer, Ryan worked in UN-Habitat’s global headquarters in Nairobi, and he is currently participating in the U.S. State Department’s Virtual Student Foreign Service Program with the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. Prior to Princeton, Ryan lived in Brooklyn, New York, and most recently served on the policy and advocacy team at UNICEF USA, where he led the organization’s child protection and inclusion advocacy portfolio. Ryan has a background in LGBTQ+ and gender equity advocacy having started his career with positions at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Obama White House Office of Public Engagement. After graduation, he hopes to continue working in international relations and human rights with a focus on breaking down systemic inequities for traditionally marginalized populations.

Dominick Tanoh

Dominick Tanoh was raised by Ghanian immigrants in Chicago. He is a current graduate student enrolled at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. There, he is pursuing his Master’s degree in Public Affairs with a focus on International Development and Urban Policy. Before Princeton, he worked as a human resources officer for the U.S. Department of Labor and served as a Youth Development volunteer in Morocco through the Peace Corps. Dominick holds a B.A. in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College in Vermont. After graduation, he hopes to work in either the United States or West Africa in physical planning and community development.

Rain Tsong

Rain Tsong is an educator from Los Angeles, California with a background in earth sciences and a passion for equitable use of data. After graduating from Yale University, Rain moved to San Antonio to teach high school science as a Teach For America corps member. After two years of teaching followed by a short period of traveling, he eventually returned to the States to learn about the outdoor education space through several summer camps. He then worked at LIFT, a U.S. economic mobility nonprofit, where he supported and then led internal learning and evaluation efforts. This past summer, he interned as a research assistant with the Centre for Education Research and Innovation at the OECD.

Evelyn Wong

Evelyn Wong is a current Master’s in Public Affairs (MPA) graduate student at Princeton University, with a specialization in international development. She is originally from Malaysia, and has lived and worked across Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and the US. Prior to Princeton, she worked as a consultant with Bain & Company advising private sector firms on business strategy. She later pivoted to a technical role with Clinton Health Access Initiative, partnering with Mekong governments on malaria elimination. Evelyn worked this past summer as a service delivery innovation intern with The World Bank in their Health, Nutrition, and Population global practice, supporting HumanCentered Design and complexity thinking program design for frontline health systems leaders. Her time in nonprofit ignited an interest to contribute to a more global-South-led, holistic, and inclusive approach to development, and she hopes to continue on this path post-graduation. Evelyn holds a dual degree in Politics and Economics from Scripps College.

Faculty Advisor

Devanne Brookins

Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Dr. Brookins’ work explores the political economy of development, urban transformation, the production of inequality with a focus on African cities. In addition to this course, Dr. Brookins teaches masters courses on Urbanization and Development; Urban Inequality; and Identity, Power and Policy in Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Prior to her time at Princeton, Dr. Brookins was Research Coordinator for the Transforming Urban Transport - The Role of Political Leadership (TUT-POL) Sub-Saharan Africa project at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Her doctoral research, “Reform from above, Reinterpretation from below: state-making and institutional change in Ghana,” confronted the dynamics of institutional and societal change as relates to land and its relevance for urban transition in Ghana’s two largest metropolitan regions. Dr. Brookins also has professional experience in international development research and program management with organizations such as The Urban Institute and Oxfam America; and has consulted for the African Development Bank, UN Habitat in the Urban Land, Legislation and Governance Branch and the African Center for Economic Transformation. Dr. Brookins holds a PhD in International Development Planning from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT, dual Masters’ degrees from Columbia University in Urban Planning (GSAPP) and International Affairs (SIPA), and a BA in Political Science and French from Wellesley College.

Percentage of Climate Action Activity Ref lected in the 20 22 Plan

B. Mapping out Climate Action Plan to the MTDP

TYPE OF MAINSTREAMING DEFINITION EXAMPLE

Managerial

Projects and Programs

Political or high-level support

The modification of managerial and working structures, including personnel and financial assets to better address and institutionalize aspects related to adaptation.

Integrating adaptation into on-the-ground operations.

Topp-down support to redirect focus by allocating funding, directing responsibilities, or promoting new projects.

Regulatory Modification of formal and informal planning procedures that lead to the integration of adaptation policies.

Collaboration and coordination

The promotion of collaboration with other departments (within the organization) or stakeholders (across organizations) to generate shared knowledge and competence for issues of adaptation.

Merging departments

Having adaptation goals embedded into daily tasks

Guidance or funding by higher administrative levels

Creating a legal mandate

Information exchange between departments

Adopted from Wamsler and Pauleit (2016). Authors note “the framework can be applied to single municipal departments or other implementing bodies at all levels.”

C. Mapping out Climate Action Plan to the MTDP

D. Mapping out Climate Action Plan to the MTDP

1 AMA and C40 (2020). Accra Climate Action Plan: First Five-Year Plan 2020 - 2025. Accra Metropolitan Assembly and C40 Cities.

2 Government of Ghana (2021). National Medium-Term Development Policy Framework 2022-2025. National Development Planning Commission, Accra, Ghana.

3 IFRC (2015). Ghana: Floods Emergency Plan of Action (EPoA). International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society. https://reliefweb.int/report/ ghana/ghana-floods-emergency-plan-action-epoa-mdrgh011

4 AMA and C40 (2020). Accra Climate Action Plan: First Five-Year Plan 2020 - 2025. Accra Metropolitan Assembly and C40 Cities.

5 Government of Ghana (2021). Ghana’s Adaptation Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Environmental Protection Agency, Accra, Ghana.

6 Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI). (2012a). National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. Retrieved from http://www. undp-alm.org/sites/default/files/downloads/ghana_national_climate_change_adaptation_strategy_nccas.pdf

7 Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. (2012). Ghana National Urban Policy Action Plan. http://www.ghanaiandiaspora.com/wp/wpcontent/uploads/2014/05/ghana-national-urban-policy-action-plan-2012.pdf

8 Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI). (2012b). National Climate Change Policy. Retrieved from https://www.climate-laws. org/geographies/ghana/policies/national-climate-change-policy-nccp

9 MESTI. (2021). Ghana: Updated Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement (2020 – 2030) Environmental Protection Agency, Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Accra. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/NDC/2022-06/Ghana%27s%20Updated%20Nationally%20 Determined%20Contribution%20to%20the%20UNFCCC_2021.pdf

10 Antwi-Agyei, P. (2018). Ghana’s National Adaptation Plan Framework. https://napglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/napgn-en-2018ghana-nap-framework.pdf

11 MESTI News. “Ghana’s National Adaptation Plan Project Launched in Accra.” Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation, 1 July 2020, mesti. gov.gh/ghanas-national-adaptation-plan-project-launched-accra/

12 Antwi-Agyei, P. (2018). Ghana’s National Adaptation Plan Framework. https://napglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/napgn-en-2018ghana-nap-framework.pdf

13 Government of Ghana. (2021). Ghana’s Adaptation Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Environmental Protection Agency, Accra, Ghana (page 17). https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Ghana_AdCom%20to%20the%20UNFCCC_November%202021_ Final%20with%20foreword.pdf

14 Amoako, Clifford, and Daniel Kweku Baah Inkoom. “The Production of Flood Vulnerability in Accra, Ghana: Re-Thinking Flooding and Informal Urbanisation.” Urban Studies, vol. 55, no. 13, Oct. 2018, pp. 2903–22, doi:10.1177/0042098016686526.

15 Accra Metropolitan Assembly. 2021. “Performance Report on Solid Waste Contractors: First Quarter January-April 2021.” Accra.

16 Baabereyir, Anthony. 2009. “Urban environmental problems in Ghana: a case study of social and environmental injustice in solid waste management in Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi.” University of Nottingham. Accessed October 10, 2022. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10847/.

Boateng, Kofi Sekyere, Peter Agyei-Baffour, Daniel Boateng, George Nana Kwasi Rockson, Kofi Akohene Mensah, and Anthony Kwaku Edusei. 2019. “Household Willingness-to-Pay for Improved Solid Waste Management Services in Four Major Metropolitan Cities in Ghana.” Journal of Environmental and Public Health https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/5468381

17 Ghana Statistical Service. Shapefiles for Ghana Population and Housing Census 2021. 2021, https://www2.statsghana.gov.gh/nada/index.php/catalog/110/ study-description.

OpenStreetMaps contributors. Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Exports of Waterways and Roads in Ghana. 6 Sept. 2022, https://data.humdata.org/ organization/225b9f7d-e7cb-4156-96a6-44c9c58d31e3.

Owusu, Maxwell, et al. “Towards User-Driven Earth Observation-Based Slum Mapping.” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, vol. 89, Sept. 2021, p. 101681. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2021.101681.

Sovoe, Simon. “SIMULATING FUTURE FLOOD INCIDENCE IN ACCRA FOR RISK REDUCTION.” WIT Transactions on The Built Environment, forthcoming. Zutah, Theophilus. Mapping of Slums in Accra ACCRA METRO_1_9_22. AMA Department of Physical Planning, 28 Nov. 2022.

18 Amoako, Clifford, and Daniel Kweku Baah Inkoom. “The Production of Flood Vulnerability in Accra, Ghana: Re-Thinking Flooding and Informal Urbanisation.” Urban Studies, vol. 55, no. 13, Oct. 2018, pp. 2903–22, doi:10.1177/0042098016686526.

19 International Development Association and World Bank. Project Appraisal Document to the Republic of Ghana for the First Phase of the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project. 2019.

20 Onuoha, D. (2014). Decongesting Accra. Johannesburg Salon, 7(1), 123-130.

21 Zutah, Theophilus. Mapping of Slums in Accra ACCRA METRO_1_9_22. AMA Department of Physical Planning, 28 Nov. 2022.

22 SDI, Slum Dweller International. “Explore Our Data.” Slum Dwellers International, 2016, https://sdinet.org/explore-our-data/

23 Farouk, Braimah R, and Mensah Owusu. “‘If in Doubt, Count’: The Role of Community-Driven Enumerations in Blocking Eviction in Old Fadama, Accra.” Environment and Urbanization, vol. 24, no. 1, 2012, pp. 47–57., https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956247811434478

24 Ghana Constitution. Article 240 (1), Chapter 20.

25 The area was calculated through GIS analysis.

26 Danielle Resnick, Democracy, decentralization, and district proliferation: The case of Ghana, Political Geography, Volume 59, 2017, Pages 47-60, ISSN 0962-6298, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.02.011.

27 Gbeckor-Kove, Eden. Shapefile for 2016 AMA Boundary. 2016. Ghana Statistical Service. Shapefiles for Ghana Population and Housing Census 2021. 2021, https://www2.statsghana.gov.gh/nada/index.php/catalog/110/ study-description

OpenStreetMaps contributors. Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Exports of Waterways and Roads in Ghana. 6 Sept. 2022, https://data.humdata.org/ organization/225b9f7d-e7cb-4156-96a6-44c9c58d31e3

28 “The Assembly.” Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Accra Metropolitan Assembly, ama.gov.gh/theassembly.php.

29 International Development Association. (2019). Project Appraisal Document to the Republic of Ghana for the first phase of the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project.

30 Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), & C40 Cities. (2020). Accra Climate Action Plan: First Five-Year Plan (2020-2025)

https://cdn.locomotive.works/sites/5ab410c8a2f42204838f797e/content_entry5ab410faa2f42204838f7990/5ab5605ea2f4220acf45cfa6/files/Accra_ Climate_Action_Plan.pdf?1603293785

31 Allotey, Albert. “City Officials Urged to Find Practical Ways to Address Waste in Cities .” Ghana News Agency (GNA), 29 Nov. 2022, gna.org.gh/2022/11/ city-officials-urged-to-find-practical-ways-to-address-waste-in-cities/

32 C40 Cities. “Equity Pledge.” C40 Cities, 2022, https://www.c40.org/accelerators/equity-pledge/

33 Wamsler, C., and Pauleit, S. “Making headway in climate policy mainstreaming and ecosystem-based adaptation: two pioneering countries, different pathways, one goal.” Climatic Change 137, 71–87 (2016).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1660-y

34 Arnstein, Sherry R. A Ladder of Citizen Participation, Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 216-224.

35 United Nations Sustainable Development Group. “Universal Values Principle One: Human Rights-Based Approach.” https://unsdg.un.org/2030-agenda/ universal-values/human-rights-based-approach

36 UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “Key Messages on Human Rights and Climate Change.” https://www.ohchr.org/sites/ default/files/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/KeyMessages_on_HR_CC.pdf.

37 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “Applying a Human Rights-Based Approach to Climate Change Negotiations, Policies and Measures.” https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/InfoNoteHRBA.pdf.

38 Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council “Vision, Mission & Objectives.” www.gtarcc.gov.gh/index.php/vision-mission-objectives/.

39 Local Government Service-Physical Planning Department. “General Documents.” http://lgs.gov.gh/general-documents/

40 “Urbanization in Ghana: Building Inclusive and Sustainable Cities.” Urbanization in Ghana: Building Inclusive & Sustainable Cities, UNHabitat, unhabitat.org/ghana

41 Bugri, John Tiah, and Eric Yeboah. “A Brief Overview of Land Tenure Arrangements in Ghana.” Understanding Changing Land Access and Use by the Rural Poor in Ghana, International Institute for Environment and Development, 2017, pp. 18–20. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep02694.9.

42 Stakeholder interview. Conducted by workshop participants, 19 October 2022.

43 This definition is in line with UN-habitat’s Habitat III issue paper #22.

44 Braimah, R.F., & Owusu, M. (2012). “If in doubt, count”: the role of community-driven enumerations in blocking eviction in Old Fadama, Accra. Environment and Urbanization, 24(1), 47-57.

45 Ghana Statistical Service. Shapefiles for Ghana Population and Housing Census 2021. 2021, https://www2.statsghana.gov.gh/nada/index.php/catalog/110/ study-description

OpenStreetMaps contributors. Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Exports of Waterways and Roads in Ghana. 6 Sept. 2022, https://data.humdata.org/organization/225b9f7d-e7cb-4156-96a6-44c9c58d31e3

Owusu, Maxwell, et al. “Towards User-Driven Earth Observation-Based Slum Mapping.” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, vol. 89, Sept. 2021, p. 101681. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2021.101681.

Zutah, Theophilus. Mapping of Slums in Accra ACCRA METRO_1_9_22. AMA Department of Physical Planning, 28 Nov. 2022.

46 Accra Climate Action Plan: First Five Year Plan (2020-2025), Accra Metropolitan Assembly and C40 Cities, cdn.locomotive.works/sites/5ab410c8a2f42204838f797e/content_entry5ab410faa2f42204838f7990/5ab5605ea2f4220acf45cfa6/files/Accra_Climate_Action_Plan.pdf?1603293785

47 Yirenya-Tawiah, Dzidzo, and Betty Osei Bonsu. LIRA 2030 - Cleaning from the Bottom up: Inclusive Stakeholder Participation for Integrated Waste Management in Accra and Lagos | Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies, University of Ghana, https://iess.ug.edu.gh/projects/institutional/lira-2030-cleaning-bottom-inclusive-stakeholder-participation-integrated

48 Stakeholder interview, conducted by workshop participants. 20 October 2022.

49 Oduro-Appiah, Kwaku, et al. “Working with the informal service chain as a locally appropriate strategy for sustainable modernization of municipal solid waste management systems in lower-middle income cities: lessons from Accra, Ghana.” Resources 8.1 (2019): 12. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/8/1/12

50 Oduro-Appiah, K., Afful, A., Kotey, V. N., & De Vries, N. (2019). Working with the Informal Service Chain as a Locally Appropriate Strategy for Sustainable Modernization of Municipal Solid Waste Management Systems in Lower-Middle Income Cities: Lessons from Accra, Ghana. 10.3390/resources8010012

51 SDG 13 specifically tasks nations across the globe with “tak[ing] urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” Its targets provide an implementation framework for the commitments undertaken by the international community through the Paris Agreement, while providing local governments with the global backing and resourcing needed to increase their capacities for effective climate change-related planning and management, particularly in lower-middle-income countries like Ghana.

52 Mensa, Marian. Interview. Conducted by Workshop Participants, 19 October 2022.

53 Old Fadama Resident Interview. Conducted by Kazim Habib, 18 October 2022.

54 Vlidzo, Eric Kwaku. “Conference on Promoting & Reinforcing Social Dialogue for Climate Resilience in the Informal Waste Sector (20/09/2022).” GhanaWeb, 27 Sept. 2022, https://www.ghanaweb.com/advertising/newsreleases/Conference-on-promoting-reinforcing-social-dialogue-for-climate-resilience-in-the-informal-waste-sector-20-09-2022-13187

55 “The Assembly.” Accra Metropolitan Assembly, https://ama.gov.gh/theassembly.php

56 “I Will Build a New Accra – New Mayor.” GhanaWeb - GNA, 9 Oct. 2021, https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/I-will-build-a-newAccra-new-Mayor-1375885.

57 Accra Metropolitan Assembly (2022). Medium-Term Development Plan 2022-2025. Unpublished draft.

58 Ibid.

59 ICLEI, & UNCDF. (2021). Climate Emergency Finance: A Call To Action. https://iclei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Financing-Climate-Emergency_final. pdf

60 Negreiros, P., Furio, V., Falconer, A., Richmond, M., Yang, K., Jungman, L., Tonkonogy, B., Novikova, A., Pearson, M., & Skinner, I. (2021). The State of Cities Climate Finance Part 1: The Landscape of Urban Climate Finance www.climatepolicyinitiative.org

61 See for more information: “Project Preparation Resource Directory.” Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance, citiesclimatefinance.org/project-preparation-resource-directory/

62 Abubakari Ahmed, Bernard Afiik A Akanbang, Michael Poku-Boansi & Emmanuel K Derbile (2022) Policy coherence between climate change adaptation and urban policies in Ghana: implications for adaptation planning in African cities, International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 14:1, 77-90, https://doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2022.2066106

63 Accra Metropolitan Assembly (2022). Medium-Term Development Plan 2022-2025. Unpublished draft.

64 Danielle Resnick, Democracy, decentralization, and district proliferation: The case of Ghana, Political Geography, Volume 59, 2017, Pages 47-60, ISSN 0962-6298, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.02.011

65 International Development Association and World Bank. Project Appraisal Document to the Republic of Ghana for the First Phase of the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project. 2019. https://garid-accra.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GARID-PIM.pdf

66 Eriksen, Siri, Schipper. (2021) “Adaptation interventions and their effect on vulnerability in developing countries: Help, hindrance, or irrelevance? World Development 141, 105383.

67 Hunter, N. B., North, M. A., Roberts, D. C., & Slotow, R. (2020). A systematic map of responses to climate impacts in Urban Africa. In Environmental Research Letters (Vol. 15, Issue 10). IOP Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab9d00

68 Chu, E, Anguelovski, I, and Carmin, J. (2016) Inclusive approaches to urban climate adaptation planning and implementation in the Global South, Climate Policy, 16:3, 372-392, DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2015.1019822

69 Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GHAFUP) leaders’ Interview. Conducted by workshop participants, 18 October 2022.

70 Government of Ghana. Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936). (Sections 78 (1), (4) and 198 (4))

71 Gbeckor-Kove, Eden. Interview. Conducted by Princeton University Students. November 22, 2022.

72 Such as International Organizations or special projects

73 Municipalities of South Africa. The Local Government Handbook:South Africa, https://municipalities.co.za/. Accessed December 12, 2022.

74 City of Cape Town. Government of South Africa, https://www.capetown.gov.za/Departments/Environmental%20Management%20Department. Accessed December 1, 2022.

75 Lorena Pasquini, Gina Ziervogel, Richard M. Cowling & Clifford Shearing (2015) What enables local governments to mainstream climate change adaptation?

Lessons learned from two municipal case studies in the Western Cape, South Africa, Climate and Development, 7:1, 60-70, DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2014.886994

76 Ibid.

77 Horn, Philipp. “Enabling participatory planning to be scaled in exclusionary urban political environments: lessons from the Mukuru Special Planning Area in Nairobi.” Environment and Urbanization 33.2 (2021): 519-538. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09562478211011088

78 Weru, Jane, et al. “The Akiba Mashinani Trust, Kenya: a local fund’s role in urban development.” Environment and Urbanization 30.1 (2018): 53-66. https:// journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956247817750963

79 Chart credited to Horn et al. Asking for permission to reproduce.

80 Pringle, Patrick. AdaptME: Adaptation monitoring and evaluation. UKCIP, Oxford, UK, 2011. www.ukcip.org.uk/adaptme-toolkit/

81 Measuring Progress In Urban Climate Change Adaptation: Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting Framework. C40 Cities and Ramboll Fonden. 2019.

82 Ibid.

83 Plano de Ação Climática de Salvador. Prefeitura de Salvador. 20 Dec. 2020, https://sustentabilidade.salvador.ba.gov.br/wp-content/uploads/2020-/12/ Salvador_Plano_de_Acao.pdf. Accessed 6 December 2022.

84 “Salvador’s Climate Action Plan also aims to reduce socioeconomic inequality”, ICLEI, https://americadosul.iclei.org/salvadors-climate-action-plan-also-aims-to-reduce-socioeconomic-inequality/ Accessed 6 December 2022.

85 The guidelines of this community engagement framework are drawn from comparative case analyses of local government engagement with climate adaptation, mitigation, and with informal settlements in Indonesia, Kenya, and Brazil.

86 Santosa, Happy Ratna. “Community Participation in the Upgrading of Informal Settlement and Housing at the River Bank of Surabaya.” CIB World Building Congress,14-17 May 2007. pp. 1964-1971. https://www.irbnet.de/daten/iconda/CIB5065.pdf.

87 Ibid.

88 Das, Ashok & King, Robin. “Surabaya: The Legacy of Participatory Upgrading of Informal Settlements.” Towards a More Equal City. World Resources Institute, 2019, https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/surabaya-legacy-participatory-upgrading-informal-settlements.pdf

89 Ibid.

90 Due to extreme GHS exchange rate fluctuations during 2022, we have left the budget figures in local Ghanaian currency. As of the time of this report (December 20, 2022) the exchange rate was 1 GHS = $0.11 USD. Thus, 80 million GHS was roughly $8.98 million USD.