Local Climate Adaptive Living (LoCAL) in Ghana

The United Nations Climate Development Fund (UNCDF) is the capital investment agency for the world’s (47) least developed countries providing “last mile” finance models to unlock public and private resources in very vulnerable communities to reduce poverty and support local economic development. One of the finance models, created by the UNCDF, is The Local Climate Adaptive Living (LoCAL), launched by UNCDF with the aim of promoting climate change–resilient communities and local economies to channel climate finance to local government authorities contributing to the achievement of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the goals of poverty eradication (SDG 1) and climate action (SDG 13).

LoCAL supports climate vulnerable municipalities in extremely poor countries to raise awareness and build capacities to respond to climate change, integrates climate change adaptation into local governments’ planning and budgeting systems in a participatory and gender-sensitive manner, and increases the amount of finance available to local governments for climate change adaptation.

Since 2017, OIKO has been supporting LoCAL in the formulation of performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs), programming climate change expenditures with technical and capacity-building support in Ghana and Bhutan.

OIKOs work has delivered measurable impact in Ghana in areas such as risk assessments, resilience to climate change and strengthened food security, which contributes to local economic growth, improvement in people’s quality of life at the grassroots level in 30 local communities in Ghana.