Kasa Initiative Holds Annual Meeting To Re-energise For SDG 13

Kasa initiative Ghana, a non-governmental organization (NGO) has organized its annual meeting for all Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) under its umbrella to review and assess their works associated with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13.

The SDG 13 under the United Nations Development Programme lays emphasis on climate change and the need to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards as well as natural disasters in all countries.

At a two-day meeting at the Ampomaah Hotel, East Legon, Accra, CSO’s who have been implementing various climate change actions came together to review their efforts since the start of the year and the way forward.

The program saw CSOs from all parts of the country taking part including Care Ghana, Social Support Foundation, Youth Development Advocacy Foundation, Youth in Natural Resources and Environmental Governance, Network for Health and Relief Foundation, as well as a host of others.

Speaking on the main agenda on the first day of the two day meeting, Dr. Daniel Benefo from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened up on steps being undertaken by the government through the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to tackle climate change.

According to him, there are tremendous investments being made in the NDC’s to ensure that the SDG 13 is achieved.

On his part, Mr. Jonathan Gokah who is the Coordinator for Kasa Initiative and the convener for the CSO’s SDG 13 platform observed that though they are aware the government is working, it is paramount for them to stay vigilant.

“We believe the government is committed to a lot of interventions and if there is no third person watching and monitoring to track achievement we will be misfiring certain sectors of the Climate industry.

“So what we do is to look closely at government’s programs and plan towards mitigating and adaptation actions and seeing where there are gaps for redress. So this meeting is supposed to really work”, he said in an interview with Modernghana on the sidelines of the meeting.

He added, “We have a lot of plans and programs but this one we are focusing on the NDC’s especially the monitoring framework which is being developed by the MESTY and its agencies now. So quickly we want to find space within that monitoring framework where CSO’s can also play a role to achieve the objectives of that framework”.