Ghana: African Development Bank and CIF strengthen gender-responsive monitoring, evaluation and reporting capacity in the forestry sector | African Development Bank

The African Development Bank and Climate Investment Funds (CIF) held a three-day workshop on March 21-23, 2023 to improve gender-responsive monitoring, evaluation and reporting capacity in Ghana’s forestry sector in the country.

Gender-sensitive monitoring, evaluation and reporting are essential to promote gender equality and ensure that development interventions are inclusive, effective and sustainable. The workshop was an opportunity to discuss the consistency and complementarity between individual CIF-supported projects and the country’s investment plan. Ghana resumes reporting of the 2022 results investment plan after suspending country-level monitoring and evaluation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tabi Agyarko, Forest Investment Program Project Manager at the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, confirmed the relevance of the workshop to the forestry sector: “It is very helpful that this workshop preceded the validation of the Ghana FIP annual report. This should be done regularly to improve understanding of FIP monitoring, evaluation and reporting guidelines before annual reporting.

Gender-sensitive monitoring, evaluation and reporting are crucial to ensure that development programs and policies are designed and implemented with a gender perspective. It involves collecting, analyzing and reporting data to capture the different experiences, needs and priorities of women and men.

The program supports the development of a gender-responsive Ghana 2022 Forest Investment Plan results report. It also seeks to address the country’s current monitoring and reporting challenges while exploring opportunities to improve data quality and data management for forestry projects, including gender-disaggregated data.

Ollame Bekale, African Development Bank Chief Program Officer for Ghana, said: “This workshop is a good opportunity to demonstrate the Bank’s commitment to advancing the climate action agenda and striving to increase impact. We thank the Government of Ghana for contributing to this effort and the CIF for making it possible.”

CIF’s business model is characterized by a country-led programmatic approach with strategically linked, large-scale investments aligned with national priorities. Investments are designed and executed using a participatory and multi-stakeholder approach.

The workshop brought together 40 participants, comprising project implementation teams and other stakeholders from Forest Investment Program projects in Ghana, as well as representatives from the African Development Bank and the World Bank. Participants discussed key implementation challenges and lessons learned that can inform future programming at national and regional levels, while applying a gender lens.

In Ghana, the Forest Investment Program has provided more than $75 million to support projects that unite the public and private sectors and indigenous and local communities to restore degraded forest landscapes and improve forest management and sustainability. Efforts include promoting sustainable cocoa and climate-smart farming and agroforestry systems, restoring degraded off-reserve forests and preserving community-dedicated forests and sacred groves, developing alternative livelihoods, and facilitating institutional capacity building and policy reforms.

Download AfDB-CIF annual report 2022