FAO, FFF train 30 FFPOs on EX-Ante Carbon-balance Tool
Responding to climate change at landscape scales.
Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses are the third largest contributor to GHG emissions after Energy and Industry emitting about 22% of all global emissions of greenhouse gases emissions from anthropogenic sources.
Data on GHG emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) activities are poorly known, hindering the identification of response strategies necessary for reducing the threat of climate change on the planet and the role that appropriate mitigation actions in the AFOLU sectors could play.
Action in agriculture, forestry and other land use are therefore of significant interest to many countries, especially where AFOLU activities represent a large portion of national economies.
Under the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), a partnership involving FAO, IUCN, IIED and Agricord, in Ghana, the focus is on strengthening the collaboration of critical stakeholders for Climate Resilient Landscapes and Improved Livelihoods and aims at enabling Forest and Farm Producer Organizations (FFPOs) active agents of change. The FAO under the FFF has trained 30 FFPOs on EX-ACT also known as EX-Ante Carbon-balance Tool, a tool made to generate data on FFPOs contribution to climate change for national reporting and advocacy.
“EX-ACT is an important tool in enhancing country-level data and can be used in estimating the impact of improved land-use management activities on the emission reductions agenda which is directly in line with the Ghana REDD+ objectives,” said Charles Sarpong Duah, Monitoring and Evaluation and Budgeting manager at the Climate Change Directorate of the Forestry Commission of Ghana.
“The Ultimate aim is to update the data from FFPOs through EX-ACT to feed into National reporting on emission reductions from the agriculture and forest land use (AFOLU) sector” he added.
“If provided with adequate support, collectively, forest and farm producers have the transformative potential to achieve sustainable development and respond to climate change at landscape scales. Empowering FFPOs will be critical to delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for fighting climate change as part of the Paris Agreement.” Sophie Grouwels a senior Forestry Officer at the FAO head Office in Rome.
“Through this training, we are supporting FFPOs and their members to strengthen their capacities to conduct, evaluate and monitor the carbon balance of their forest and farm operations. With this information, FFPOs can make informed decisions about their farm with the EX-Ante Carbon-balance Tool (EX-ACT)” Sophie said.
The EX-Ante Carbon-balance Tool (EX-ACT)
The EX-Ante Carbon-balance Tool (EX-ACT) is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories. EX-ACT provides its users with a consistent way of estimating and tracking the outcomes of agricultural interventions on GHG emissions. EX-ACT is the only GHG accounting tool to cover the entire agrarian sector including Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU,) inland and coastal wetlands, fisheries and aquaculture, agricultural inputs and infrastructure.
The FFF is a global multi-donor-funded program hosted by the Forestry Division of FAO seeking to strengthen and empower FFPOs, including women, youth and indigenous peoples as primary change agents for climate-resilient landscapes and improved livelihoods.
The FFF is currently working in 10 countries: Bolivia, Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nepal, Togo, Vietnam, Zambia and Tanzania. In Ghana, the FFF is supporting FFPOs in 3 ecological zones and the Ghana National Federation of Forest and Farm Producers (GhaFFaP)