The document summarizes the experiences of establishing a National Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) platform in Ghana to facilitate information sharing and policy dialogue between stakeholders. A secretariat and core team structure was formed at the national level, while district platforms were also established. The platform organized various workshops and events to raise awareness of climate smart agriculture. Challenges included limited resources to support action at local levels and developing climate change vocabulary in local languages. Lessons indicated a need for financial sustainability of sub-national platforms and partnerships to enable policy influence and action.

1. Authors: Karbo1, N., Botchway1, V. A., Sam1, K. O., Totin2, E., Traore2, P. S and Zougmore2, R.
Addresses:
1CSIR-Animal Research Institute, Accra, Ghana
2International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Bamako, Mali
Main message
Climate change science - policy information is well developed at national level and appears defuse at the sub-national
level resulting in low climate policy literacy and poor interaction between key stakeholders. National and sub-national
climate change science policy platforms can enable institutional arrangements to bring desired change through
information sharing and policy dialogue at all levels enhancing climate smart agriculture to sustain livelihoods.
Hon. Nii Lantey Vanderpuije, Dep. Minister (MOTI) Left, Dr. Bernice Heloo,
Dep. Minister, (MESTI), Middle and Dr. A.B Salifu, Director- General (CSIR) Right
during Ghana CCAFS Platform launch.
Pictures
CGIAR Challenge rogr
Platform Knowledge Products online
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/
artikel.php?ID=337446
http://www.ghananewsagency.org/science/all-should-be-
concerned-about-climate-change-minister-82949
http://vibeghana.com/2014/12/02/all-should-be-concerned-
about-climate-change-minister/
http://www.ghananewsagency.org/print/82949
8 0143
F: +94 11 278 4083
E: cpwfsecretariat@cgiar.org
March 16-17, 2015
Purpose
Food systems of many developing countries are
challenged by climate change and its variability effects
with growing food insecurity, and environmental
degradation. Institutional mechanisms to reduce
vulnerability and enhance food security and resilience
in agricultural development are essential. The Climate
Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), West
Africa programme facilitated the establishment of
National CCAFS-platforms in Mali, Senegal and Ghana
for the purpose. This poster presents the experiences
of the Ghana Platform whose objective set out to link
smallholder farmers with research and policy decision
makers for information sharing and policy dialogue for
better informed and more drastic sequences of
adaptation measures.
Method
Participatory and inclusive workshops were employed
to mobilise national multi-stakeholder actors. The
Ghana CCAFS-platform was therefore born out of
stakeholder discussions and their resolve to share
climate change information and actions influencing
policy in favour of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA)
technologies and practices. The governance structure
and functioning of the Platform was determined by
participants at the mobilisation workshop.
The platform functioning mechanisms included
meetings, community field visits, and district, regional
and national workshops. Minutes of meetings, field
visits reports, workshop proceedings and media
publications were consulted in the study. The Ghana
CCAFS-platform experiences shared covers the period
2012-2015.
Title: Learning and Sharing Science-Policy for Action Building Resilience to Climate Change:
Experiences of Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Platform, Ghana
3rd Global Conference on Climate Smart Agriculture 2015
There was a variation of the governance pattern in the sub-
national platforms (Table 2). This diversity is worth and provides
opportunity to trace how the diversity of governance structure
influences the policy change mechanism in the different
platforms.
Table 2: District level platform host institutions
Sub-national Platform Host Organization
Lawra Traditional Council
Jirapa Department of Agriculture
Nandom Nandom Dinery Rural Integrated
Development Project(NANDRIDEP) an
NGO
Structure Composition Number of
People
Platform
Secretariat
Chairman, Secretary, Accountant and
M&E Focal Person (Secretariat is hosted
by CSIR-Animal Research Institute)
4
Platform
Core Team
Comprised of representatives from
strategic organizations (EPA, UG, MoFA,
CSIR, FAO, FBO, NGO, FWO)
11
National
Platform
Secretariat plus Core Team plus
Institutions/organizations (public and
private), the Media, District Platforms,
etc.
60
b) Environmental Scan of Stakeholders
Figures 1a and 1b provide the diversity of platform
representation at district and national levels.
Figure 1a: Graph of Environmental Scan of Actors during district
level mobilization.
Figure 1b: Graph of Environmental Scan of
Actors during national level mobilization.
c) Sharing and learning events.
Table 3 presents the platform learning and sharing events
depicting the vertical and horizontal outreach with climate
change issues addressing knowledge sharing and policy
influence function.
Table 3: Learning and Sharing Events with Outcomes, 2012 –
2015
d) Platform sustainability
The following measures were put in place for platform
sustainability
 Attraction of funds through proposal development
 Transparency, trust building and team work
 Registration as independent not for profit organisation
 Partnership with key stakeholder organisations
e) Challenge (s)
Action oriented expectations of district level actors
overwhelming for platforms due to resources limitation.
Platform is challenged with the needed capacity to access
existing climate funds to translate into action on the ground.
Communication in local languages in area of climate change
science and policy appears challenging due to limited
vocabulary in the Ghanaian dialects.
f) Lessons learnt
National platform can facilitate setting up of sub-national
platforms but may not be able to financially resource them
to sustainably function.
There is consensus among smallholder farmers on CSA
practices, however to transform it into action with right
investments needs push.
Participation of Traditional Councils in platform activities
appears ripe for co-creation of climate change science
knowledge and policies with indigenous knowledge of local
people for action; science alone cannot do it!
Group picture after stakeholder workshop
Findings
a) Platform Governance structure.
Table 1 shows the Ghana CCAFS Platform organizational
structure. A secretariat of 4 staff and a core team of 11
representatives from strategic and relevant key
stakeholder organizations mandated at the mobilization
workshop to facilitate the running of the national
platform. Average number of over 60 participants is
recorded when the Platform is in session.
Table 1: Organizational Structure of CCAFS Platform Ghana
Our Partners
Acknowledgement by Logos
*Figures in parentheses are expressed in percentages
Time Event Participants by Gender Output/Outcome
Male Female
2012 National Multi-stakeholder
mobilisation on climate
change sensitisation
25 (89) 3 (11)  Platform established and
functional
 National realisation of
uncoordinated sharing of climate
change information in the
country
2013 Platform launched by sector
ministers of state (MoFA,
MoTI and MESTI)
54 (79) 14 (21)  Platform gained political support
to operate
 Networking enhanced
2014 Sensitisation of
Parliamentarians and Chief
Directors on CSA
53 (77) 16 (23)  A communique endorsing CSA in
country agricultural planning and
investments
2014 Regional platform
workshops in Wa and
Kumasi to sensitise and
profile CSA practices in
Savannah and Forest zones
116 (78) 32 (22)  Huge awareness created at all
levels on CSA and National
climate change Policy launched
by the President of Ghana
 Knowledge product on profiled
CSA published and disseminated
2014 District level platform
mobilisation, establishment
and launch in three districts
in Upper West region of
Ghana:
Lawra district
Jirapa district
Nandom district
152 (75)
113 (68)
109 (72)
51 (25)
54 (32)
43 (28)
 District platforms networking
with district structures of local
government and the National
Platform
2014 Partnership with Traditional
Authorities on climate
change at festivals in Lawra,
Upper West region
260 (72) 100 (28)  CSA mainstreamed into annual
‘Kobine’ festival for information
sharing, learning and action
2014 Joint capacity building in
M&E in collaboration with
IUCN
17 (81) 4 (19)  Participants trained on policy
influence M&E approaches and
methods
 M&E plan developed to guide
project implementation
2015 Workshop to share CCAFS
knowledge products (Multi-
level Integrated Adaptation
Governance in Ghana)
31 (69) 14 (31)  Contributed inputs to the
formulation of agricultural sector
food security action plan of the
National Climate Change Policy
document
 Local level policy action areas
generated for engagement of
district platforms