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Agriculture is important for Ghana's economy and the livelihoods of the majority of the rural population even though its level of contribution to GDP is declining. Its importance is not only in terms of the contribution to food and nutrition security, but also in providing a basis for agro-industrial activities and for exports. It provides jobs and livelihoods to a significant proportion of the population especially in the rural areas. Farmers cultivate major staples such as maize, cassava, yam, plantain, sorghum and rice. The cash crops grown include cocoa, oil palm, cashew and rubber among others. Ghana's 2019 annual growth rate for agriculture was 4.6%. The crop sub-sector is the largest in the agricultural sector followed by livestock and fisheries. The impacts of climate change on agriculture are not just projected but are real. The sector is currently contending against erratic rainfall patterns, water stress, desertification/ degradation of ecological systems/ forest degradation; increasing temperatures; and disruption of seasonality. Climate change affects agricultural activities in diverse ways including changes in the onset of the rainy season, increase incidence and frequency in some regions, increase in post-harvest losses of agricultural commodities, decline in the availability and quality of forage and high mortality and morbidity of livestock. Managing the impacts of climate change is important in addressing the challenge of enhancing productivity in the agricultural sector. It is a multi-dimensional challenge; hence solutions must emanate from the identifiable components of the environment. Agriculture is given a high priority in Ghana's political and socio-economic discourse with the President highlighting the agricultural programme of PFJ as the flagship of his government. The various national policy documents including the national development framework have underscored the importance of the agricultural sector. However, there is need to enhance policy coherence and strengthen policy implementation along the governance structures from the national through the regional to the municipal and district assemblies. Farmers and women must have stronger voices at the district level to articulate better their concerns. Besides, Ghana's national budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector is still below the target of the Maputo Declaration at about 9.7% currently. However, the on-going programmes such as the PFJ and its constituent modules are likely to increase it. The funding from multi- and bilateral sources are also likely to increase agricultural expenditures. The key recommendations proposed include creating an enabling legal, institutional and policy framework to create a favorable environment for enhancing policy coherence and strengthening policy implementation along the governance structures from the national to regional through to the municipal and district assemblies. It is also important to increase national budgetary and finance flows from bilateral and multi-lateral sources into the agriculture sector to promote widespread adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA). Investments should take into account gender and youth considerations, supported by a strong extension services system. Farmers' adoption of CSA is an important intervention area that economic planning must cater for. Market access and access to financial resources to finance their agricultural activities in crops, livestock, fishery and agroforestry, are crucial. Government must consider, adopt and implement this recommendation in collaboration with other stakeholders.

The Delphi technique is a means of facilitating discussion among experts in order to develop consensus, and can be used for policy formulation. This article describes a modified Delphi approach in which 27 multi-disciplinary academics and 22 stakeholders from Ghana and North America were polled about ways to address negative effects of small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Ghana. In early 2014, the academics, working in disciplinary groups, synthesized 17 response options based on data aggregated during an Integrated Assessment of ASGM in Ghana. The researchers participated in two rounds of Delphi polling in March and April 2014, during which 17 options were condensed into 12. Response options were rated via a 4-point Likert scale in terms of benefit (economic, environmental, and benefit to people) and feasibility (economic, social/cultural, political, and implementation). The six highest-scoring options populated a third Delphi poll, which 22 stakeholders from diverse sectors completed in April 2015. The academics and stakeholders also prioritized the response options using ranking exercises. The technique successfully gauged expert opinion on ASGM, and helped identify potential responses, policies and solutions for the sector. This is timely given that improvement to the ASGM sector is an important component within the UN Minamata Convention.

The policy document – National Climate-Smart Agriculture and Food Security Action Plan of Ghana (2016-2020) – provides the implementation framework for an effective development of climate-smart agriculture in the ground. It formulates specific strategies that will contribute developing climate-resilient agriculture and food systems for all agro-ecological zones, as well as the human resource capacity required for a climate-resilient agriculture promotion in Ghana. The action plan is therefore an effort to translate to the ground level the broad national goals and objectives in climate-smart agriculture. Its development has been made possible through the active engagement of various public and private institutions and organizations in Ghana. The methodology comprised desk research, data collection through interviews and participatory workshops and small group meetings. A review of relevant agricultural policy documents such as the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP), the METASIP and the Agriculture Sustainable Land Management Strategy and Action Plan was done to analyse the current national agricultural policy environment. Participatory workshops were organized to bring representatives of stakeholder organizations together to discuss various components of the action plans and prepare inputs. These stakeholder consultation workshops were used to carry out prioritization of the action areas by the agro-ecological groupings. The stakeholders included farmers, small-scale agro-entrepreneurs, women groups and local government authorities. In addition, a validation workshop was held to provide a platform for a final discussion of the draft Action Plan with key stakeholders. It brought together representatives from the relevant ministries and public institutions including MoFA, MESTI, NDPC, private sector entities and farmer-based organizations. The Action Plan defined implementation programmes in the respective agro- ecological zones and in the various districts. Activities defined in the action plan have been developed on the premise that the eight programme areas of the Agriculture and Food Security focus area of the NCCP, provide a useful framework for detailing the specific activities and their corresponding implementing agencies. Other key components discussed the cross-cutting issues in the implementation of the plan and the monitoring and evaluation system. What remains crucial now is the allocation of resources to effectively implement the plan. In this regards, the lessons from the prioritization of the action areas by the stakeholders are instructive. Each of the three agro-ecological zones has action areas of emphasis. However, the development and promotion of climate-resilient cropping systems is important for all three zones and national efforts to focus on this since it is at the foundation of food security. More specifically, for the Savannah Zone, water conservation and irrigation systems are critical. For the Transition Zone, the development of livestock production system is important whilst for the Forest Zone, capacity development is a priority. The key message from the prioritization is that, it guides the formulation of the location-specific activities to address climate change and therefore engenders effective allocation of national resources. What needs to be underscored is the fact that, it is not the formulation of plans that creates impact. It is the dedicated implementation and commitment to the ideals and principles undergirding the plans that bring results. The earnest hope is to have commitment manifested with this national action plan.

AbstractWe witness a promotion of hybrid partnerships, where actors with different competences and resources collaborate for smallholder inclusive value chain development. To better understand the functioning of these partnerships, we used institutional theory and studied the context of a global and emerging regional food value chains in Ghana, the blending of logics by key actors in Innovation Platforms and Public Private Partnerships, and their effect on value chain relations of smallholder farmers. In the global value chain of cocoa, partnerships adhered to 'green revolution' and 'free-market' logics, and provided all farmers material support. In the more informally organised regional food sector, local executing partners selectively coupled their logics with those of poor smallholders, who rely on low-input agriculture and solidarity logics to make ends meet. This improved the position and transaction costs of smallholders to participate in the value chain. Hence, it is more likely for partnerships to create smallholder inclusive governance in informally organised regional food value chains, than highly structured global value chains controlled by international buyers. To gain insight in the variety of political effects this triggers in different social–historical shaped farmer communities, households and actors, we recommend complementary local research from a critical institutional perspective.

Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), including Ghana, rely on agriculture for their income and food security. Any initiative that might help to sustain and improve productivity in agriculture would be a crucial step in improving people's livelihoods. The adoption of climate-smart practices is a key step in reducing the threat to the sustainability of agricultural production in Ghana. Yet, despite the concern about the threat caused by climate variability and change, little empirical analysis has been carried out to date on how best to tackle it. However, recently many of the development and government programs are being designed in such a way that if adopted, can tackle the problems associated with climate variability and change. The majority of rural farmers have now adopted these practices. However, the cost effectiveness of adopting these practices – a key ingredient to the policy-making processes – is challenging. The results presented in this report attempt to bridge the knowledge gap between the cost and effectiveness, using ex-ante cost-benefit analysis to assess the cost effectiveness of some of the proposed climate-smart agricultural practices. This study examines the private and social benefits and the costs of selected climate-smart agricultural practices as a step towards understanding their private and potential social benefits and costs and their implication in terms of deterring their adoption from the farmers' viewpoint and any potential social benefits, if adopted.