A Rocha Ghana and Tropenbos Ghana, environmental sensitive non-governmental organisations, have launched an initiative to support green business ideas towards building innovative businesses that are climate resilient.
The initiative, which is in the form of a competition, is open to businesses in the Western North, North East, and Upper West Regions, where four businesses would be selected and supported financially.
It is being funded by the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry in partnership with IUCN-Netherland Committee, WWF, and Tropenbos International under the five-year Mobilizing More for Climate project.
Mr Evans Mensah Sampene, Project Coordinator of Tropenbos Ghana, at the launch in Accra, said the call for business proposal would take into consideration innovative actions that sought to address key landscape challenges.
He said the competition for businesses in Sefwi Wiaso, Juabeso, and Bia areas would look out for ideas that sought to build adaptive capacities to develop resilience against climate change and initiatives to curtail cocoa-related deforestation.
Other considerations, he said, would be initiatives that would promote crop and income diversification, value addition, and sustainable production value chains.
“The 2021 call for green business ideas will combine innovative ways of doing business to protect and restore the natural environment, and as well contributing to both national and international climate goals of mitigation and adaptation as well as biodiversity conservation.”
The programme would be implemented in Sefwi Wiaso, Juabeso, and Bia landscape by Tropenbos while A Rocha would focus on the Mole Ecological landscape in the Savannah Region of Ghana.
Mr Daryl Bosu, Deputy National Director, A Rocha Ghana, said the project sought to address charcoal production by reducing firewood production and related deforestation practices and improve access to renewable biomass energy to in the Mole ecological landscape.
He explained that 20 promising business ideas would be preselected in a first round and after, 10 most promising business ideas would be selected by a four-member expert panel, to work with.
Dr Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, Deputy Director of Climate Change Department, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said citizens were responsible for preserving the sanity of the climate, adding that, the initiative would bring public and private sectors together to solve adverse effects of climate change.
He advised stakeholders of the project to be unconventional to avoid the elimination of good business ideas from grassroots individuals to help achieve the objective of building a resilient Ghana.
Mrs Gladys Ofei, Senior Trade, and Economic officer, Netherlands Embassy, appealed to private sectors to get involve in climate mitigation activities, especially investing in green businesses.
Application forms for people in the Sefwi Wiaso, Juabeso, and Bia landscape could be downloaded at the Tropenbos Ghana website, www.tropenbosghana.org, and completed forms submitted to esampene@tropenbosgh.org.
Hard copies of the forms could also be accessed at Business Advisory Centers (BAC), at the landscape area.
Completed applications should be submitted by August 6, 2021.
Applicants from the Mole Ecological Landscape can download forms from www.ghana.arocha.org and submit via email at ghana@arocha.org
The deadline for submission of forms has been slated for August 20, 2021.
