Over 5.5m coastal residents face danger as a result of degradation
Published:
2 months ago
Source:
GhanaWeb
An estimated 5.5 million coastal residents in Ghana face significant challenges as 80 percent of the coastline is highly vulnerable to erosion and flooding - with some areas eroding at 4 to 12 metres annually, says the World Bank. The Bank also projects the cost of coastal degradation at about 4 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually, threatening communities, ecosystems and biodiversity, Sustainable Development Programme Leader at the World Bank, Naila Ahmed has noted.
"Coastal degradation costs government and the country about 4% of its GDP each year, threatening communities, ecosystems and biodiversity," she noted in an address on behalf of the World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. She made these remarks at the West Africa Coastal Areas Resilience Investment Project II (WACA ResIP 2) launch held in Accra. The WACA ResIP 2 Ghana project, financed with a US$150million World Bank loan and a US$5million grant, aims to improve the resilience of targetted communities and regions along the coast to safeguard livelihoods and ecosystems. In an address, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) Ophelia Mensah-Hayford also highlighted the alarming rate of coastal erosion and how climate change has further exacerbated this situation along the country's coast.