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Reaffirming Ghana’s Commitment to being an active member of the Group on Earth Observations Community, GEO, the Vice President of the Republic, H.E Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has proudly acknowledged the efforts and active engagement of the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Samuel A. Jinapor on the Governing Board of the Digital Earth Africa Program, which is a GEO initiative geared towards use of Earth observations data, tools, and services to inform decisions for accelerated climate and sustainable development action.
“Ghana through our representatives has been active in GEO and its activities. We value the GEO convening power to connect countries, organizations, and experts to collectively address global challenges. We are proud to acknowledge the active engagement of our Lands and Natural Resources Minister on the Governing Board of the Digital Earth Africa Program, a GEO initiative”
He noted that Other Ghanaians are also playing active roles in several activities such as GEO Land Degradation Neutrality and GEO Blue Planet initiatives. Adding that “Some EO activities have been implemented to address critical challenges – for example, the application of Digital Earth Africa tools and services to monitor and quantify deforestation and mining activities in Ghana, monitoring of oceans and coastal through the GEO Blue Planet initiatives, and the integration of geospatial data with statistical data to monitor human movement during Covid-19 lockdown”
The Vice President of the Republic disclosed this when he gave a keynote address on Wednesday, 2nd November, 2022 at the 18th Symposium and Annual General Meeting(AGM) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO)dubbed GEO-WEEK 2022 with the theme; Global Action for Local Impact.
As part of Ghana’s commitment to the GEO call, the vice president said Ghana’s Presidency of the Vulnerable Twenty Group (V20) is another manifestation of the country’s commitment and priority to joining the rest of the world to address the rapid decline of our planet’s health and its vulnerability.
The Vice President in his address also disclosed that Ghana has made significant progress in poverty reduction efforts, indicating that over 2 million citizens no longer live in poverty, with a widened access to education, jobs, higher agricultural production, and rapid urbanization drove poverty reduction.
He was however quick to add that the rapid urban growth in the country puts pressure on our cities, including secondary cities, which have grown comparatively faster than larger ones.
He reminded the Community of the major environmental, climatic, economic and social challenges confronting the earth as they organise themselves with the GEO Week and subsequently the United Nations climate Change Conference, COP 27 in Egypt and challenged them to collaborate and find innovative solutions to these problems.
“Evidence of melting glaziers, rising carbon emissions, rapid degradation of the earth Natural resources keeps getting stronger each year which has contributed to severe distruction and displacement of people these events should reinforce the resolve to continue working collaboratively and find innovative solutions to build resilient economies, secure food and water systems and ensure the sustainable management of our planet”
He submitted to the GEO community to grab that the unique opportunity the meeting offers, to renew thier unequivocal commitment, deepen international collaborations and develop national earth observation capabilities to support socio-economic transformation for the achievements of the ideal Africa and world dreamed of as articulated in the agenda 2063 and post-2030 Agenda respectively.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia called on the GEO community to continuously invest in capacity development in low and middle-income countries to acquire the necessary technologies, knowledge and skills to access and use EO data effectively.
Speaking on Digital Earth Africa’s Impact on Africa, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Samuel A jinapor who was a panlist on the second plenary session said mining continue to be one of the major driving forces of deforestation in Ghana but government is employing stringent meaures to deal with the illegalities.
He explained the two-pronged approach employed by government through his Ministry to tackle the fight against illegal small scale mining mentioning them as law enforcement and reformation measures to sanitize the sector.
In his concluding statement he hoped that all efforts and activities of the Digital Earth Africa initiative will be a resounding success.
*END*
*PR UPDATES – MLNR*
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