Technical Specialist at UNDP

This programme will contribute to addressing the root causes of irregular migration through green and climate resilient local economic development and improving future prospects of beneficiaries, by creating employment and enterprise opportunities in selected sectors and regions (Ashanti and Western). The action aims at supporting job creation in regions of departure, transit and return of Ghana, creating local financial ecosystems that facilitate the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and enabling the transition of local economies to green and climate resilient development.

The programme will use the lessons learnt from UNCDF experiences in (i) Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRGs) which support investments for green and resilient local economies as well as (ii) Youth finance which introduces best practices to advance financial inclusion.

The PBCRG provides a country-based mechanism to increase awareness and response to climate change at the local level, integrate climate change adaptation into local governments’ planning and budgeting systems in a participatory and gender sensitive manner, and increase the amount of finance available to local governments for climate change adaptation. The PBCRG is currently being implemented in the 14 countries around the world called, the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL). This mechnism combines PBCRGs with technical and capacity-building support. It uses a demonstration effect to trigger further flows for local adaptation, including national fiscal transfers and global climate finance for local authorities, through their central governments. Since its global scale up in 2014, LoCAL has engaged 99 local governments in 13 countries, representing over 6 million people. Between 2014 and 2017, it delivered close to USD 14.5 million, with grants and technical assistance to countries totaling USD 9.8 million. During the same period, 507 climate change adaptation interventions were finalized across 11 countries using grants, with another 68 under implementation or being planned. With the use of the PBCRG approach, UNCDF will support the implementation of Result 1 “Local economies are stimulated and short-term job opportunities for youth, women and returnees are created through green and climate resilient investments” under the programme.

UNCDF has also developed great expertise in youth finance by bringing access to financial services to nearly 1,000,000 youth in 8 different countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Financial Services Providers (FSPs) participating in the programme mobilized USD 23M in savings and granted USD 66M in loans to 330,700 young entrepreneurs. UNCDF has also worked in Ghana by supporting FSPs to expand access to savings, and particularly, to link informal savings groups to banks and other formal financial institutions. Simultaneously, UNCDF has expanded its support across countries to develop digital financial services for smallholder farmers, women, families with children, pensioners, and micro, small and medium enterprises. These efforts have led to creative approaches to the development of human-centric services and have fostered an innovation ecosystem around financial services. This UNCDF programme approach will be utilized in implementing Results 3 “Increased access and usage of financial services, leveraging remittances and digital solutions, adapted to the needs of (i) youth, women and returnees benefiting from cash for work schemes and (ii) local communities and MSMEs”.

The programme will be implemented in conjunction with SNV, using their model for youth entrepreneurs ‘Opportunities for Youth Employment (OYE) programme’, SNV’s most advanced multi-country programme thus far, which targeted 27,000 rural out of school youth in Tanzania, Rwanda and Mozambique. The programme has been implemented in the agriculture and renewable energy sectors. Currently, OYE has become a global SNV product and new OYE projects have started in other countries, such as Mali and Niger, both funded by EUTF.

SNV will support Result 2 “Employability of youth, women and returnees are improved through orientation support and assistance, to transition to skills development, for the benefit of green and climate resilient local economies” and Results 4 “SMEs, offering decent and sustainable jobs to youth, women and returnees, are incubated and/or accelerated and contribute to green and climate resilient local economies” whilst working closely with the two other result areas.

The main results under the UNCDF-EUTF agreement are the following:

• Result 1 (R1): Local economies are stimulated and short-term job opportunities for youth, women and returnees are created through green and climate resilient investments. The first set of activities under Results 1 will aim at informing and participatory planning to help MMDAs and communities to identify and select local resilient investments to be financed by the performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs) and by the diaspora through a crowdfunding platform to be developed under Results 3. MMDAs will benefit from assistance to undertake or utilise risk assessment and establish local information systems for risk informed planning, in partnership with universities and research institutes. Awareness and sensitization activities will be undertaken. Needs and capacity gaps will be assessed and addressed through targeted capacity building activities.
• Result 2 (R2): Employability of youth, women and returnees are improved through orientation support and assistance, to transition to skills development for the benefit of green and climate resilient local economies (cash for work beneficiaries). The activities under Result 2 will facilitate prospective cash for work beneficiaries from the targeted MMDAs to be called upon to apply, and returnees included among the list of prospective beneficiaries. Beneficiaries will be selected based on targets to be reached in consultation with MMDAs and UNCDF. Coordination and synergies will be ensured with the activities undertaken by UNCDF’s joint Programme partner SNV, for broader activities under Result 2 and Result 4 “SMEs, offering decent and sustainable jobs to youth, women and returnees, are incubated and/or accelerated and contribute to green and climate resilient local economies”.
• Result 3 (R3): Increased access and usage of financial services, leveraging remittances and digital solutions, adapted to the needs of (i) youth, women and returnees benefiting from cash for work schemes and (ii) local communities and MSMEs. The activities under Result 3 will facilitate access and usage of targeted beneficiaries (youth, women, returnees, MSMEs) to financial services. The action will focus on the Diaspora and will leverage it to advance financial inclusion of Ghana’s most vulnerable groups. In particular, the activities under R3 will aim to build financial capabilities of clients; support the supply-side to provide financial services adapted to the target’s needs as well as test and pilot innovative financial solutions (e.g. crowdfunding) to better channels investments at the local level.