The Ghana Environmental Management Project (GEMP), has supported many communities in the Upper West Region to form and reactivate community environmental management committees.

Forty-three communities have enacted rules and regulations to protect sacred groves, created protected areas, introduced non-bush burning concept compost making, and promoted the engagement of women groups in alternative livelihood activities, such as soap-making, moringa-processing, bee-keeping, and rabbit and pig rearing among others, under the project.

GEMP has also supported the establishment of six strategic tree nurseries in the region, Dr. Mohammed Mushiebu Alfa, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, has said at a joint stakeholders’ round table regional learning workshop on GEMP, in Wa.

Stakeholders from the three northern regions are attending the three-day workshop to share knowledge, experiences and lessons learnt in the course of the project implementation.

It also offered the opportunity to cross-check monitoring and evaluation data and to discuss its bearing on project management and eventual continuation of project activities and for participants to come out with constraints, challenges, and map out strategy to address them.

Dr. Alfa said another project, the Sustainable Land and Water Management Project (SLWMP), funded by the World Bank, had contributed to the improvement of the environment in the region.

He said the project had helped in the development of land management of selected micro-watersheds in Northern Ghana to eliminate land degradation and enhanced agricultural productivity.

The Deputy Regional Minister appealed for more support to reach out to other communities, which desperately needed assistance.

Mr. Isabel Abreu, a Natural Resource and Environment Consultant at the World Bank, said there were 69 sub-projects implemented in 2013, and in 2014, the figure rose to 900, explaining that about 1,500 hectares of land had been put into productive ventures.

He said the World Bank appreciated efforts to innovate and advance the protection of buffer zones that were promoted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Water Resources Commission through engagement with traditional authorities and the district assemblies.

Mr. Michael Creighton, a Development Officer at the Canadian High Commission, said the project sought to connect environment and gender, especially, how the environment affected women and men and reduced bushfires and chemical usage.

He urged government to prioritise food security in Northern Ghana and gave the assurance that Canada would continue to strengthen relationship Ghana’s government and the EPA.

According to Canada International Development Agency, the goal of GERMP is to strengthen Ghanaian institutions and rural communities in order to enable them to reverse land degradation and desertification trends in three regions of northern Ghana.

The project also aims to adopt sustainable land and water management systems to improve food security and reduce poverty.

These management systems, it says, affect the development of effective policies, institutions, and practices that support improvements in land and water management in select northern rural communities.