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Ghana risks missing the opportunity to access an estimated US$320 million Green Climate Fund (GCF), meant to mitigate effects of climate change, an Economic Officer of the Finance Ministry, Robert Mensah, has said.

This is due to the inability of organizations to submit workable proposals to access the fund and manage it.

The GCF, is an international financing mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), designed to assist developing countries to support low emission and climate-resilient programmes and projects.

The fund also aims to enhance the resilience of people, enterprises and ecosystems in developing countries to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Speaking to the Goldstreet Business at a Climate Finance and Integrity Seminar organized by the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Mensah explained that the major challenge for many institutions, that applied to manage the fund, was their inability to meet the proposal criteria.

Out of 50 institutions, which applied to manage the fund in 2015, only two, Ecobank and Social Investment Fund, were selected to go through accreditation to manage it. Only these two organizations, met the 60 percent requirement and were shortlisted to undergo an online training which, he added, may take close to two years to complete.

He said the National Designated Authority, out of 19 projects submitted to the GCF secretariat, was able to acquire approval for three which are the Ghana Shea Landscape Redd+, Climate Resilient Landscape for Sustainable Livelihood in Northern Ghana, and the Accelerating Solar Programme for Ghana.

“These three projects have US$320 million budgetary allocation for their implementation, with US$50million each for the Shea project and the Sustainable Livelihood Programme whiles US$220million is budgeted for the solar project” he disclosed.

He noted that, the National Designated Authority (NDA), which is a department of the Finance Ministry, is mandated to lead all correspondence between Ghana and the GCF secretariat to ensure that proposals submitted by National Implementing Entities are aligned with the country’s climate policies.

Mensah indicated, “It’s not encouraging that for more than a year the fund is yet to be accessed by any national implementing entity.”

Chair of the event, Mary Addah of the Ghana Integrity Initiative noted that climate change may get worse if organizations fail to access designated funds to implement adaptation strategies to tackle the challenge.

She said, it was important that such funds, when acquired should not be diverted by organizations, but must be used for its purpose.