We Must Participate in Public Policy Discourse

We Must Participate in Public Policy Discourse

Public policy is the biggest driver of change, and the people who implement policy are ordinary citizens. One area which is my daily bread and in which the public policy divide plays out spectacularly is in the climate change space.

Compared to Europe and North America, Africa as a whole has invested significantly in enabling legal and policy frameworks. For example, 52 out of 54 countries in Africa have ratified their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), making Africa the most compliant region globally.

What Africa needs to bridge the implementation divide, is not development dollars alone, but a citizenry that is bold, visionary, and selfless enough to devise enterprise solutions to challenges that affect every corner of Africa. The catchment for this citizenry is the informal sector, which already accounts for over 80% of all employment in sub-Saharan Africa. Another catchment is African youth, which constitutes up to 60% of Africa’s population making them the most significant non-state actor constituency in size, that urgently needs to be tapped to drive climate action policy forward.

People are the greatest resource we have and we need to tap into their minds and hearts as the source of wealth. Ignore this at your own peril. Each of us needs to assess what our countries have achieved to date, and what could be done differently to make a better outcome.

For instance, it is documented that an excess of $15 billion has been invested in Africa’s agriculture over the past two decades. Yet, we still grapple with the same challenges we did twenty years ago. Africa still cannot feed itself. Cumulatively, there are a total of fifty-eight major energy initiatives in the continent. Through such initiatives, a total of $30 billion has been invested from multilateral and bilateral sources in just four years (this is excluding the private sector). However, over 60 per cent of Africa is not productively energised. One starts to ask whether MONEY is really the biggest problem in the continent, as it is made to seem.

As an out-of-the-box thinking climate change expert, I have asked myself one big question:

How can we leverage on what we have and use it as the silver bullet, the master key that unlocks the door to accelerated socioeconomic transformation without just waiting to hear from others, since we have delineated our reference point to others and until they speak?

We have to wait for them to determine our next thinking before we can react and clap as we await the next person to take the next move.

I have seen firsthand what a passionate-minded structurally guided people can do. We are seeing lessons accruing from youth actions which we are leading in all corners of the continent, cross hybridising lessons with willing actors in other corners of the continent without physical engagement. This is accomplished through leveraging on the passion and willingness of the willing passionate people. With this approach, we are seeing how this dynamic can play out practically, but at a micro-level.

Young people are being structurally guided to leverage their skills and passion to work with local farmers, cluster them into local cooperatives to leverage economies of scale, and decentralise simple climate action solutions of solar dryers to enable value addition. These solar dryers are enhancing food safety by lowering incidents of dangerous aflatoxin by 53%, enabling farmers to increase the shelf-life of perishables, thus cutting postharvest losses to ensure efficient utilisation of the ecosystem services used to produce the foods Africans consume.

From these practical steps, data has been generated on the financial, market, environmental, and social benefits of youth actions, as well as the gaps that need to be addressed to sustain and upscale these successes. It is this data that is then used to recalibrate policy and make it more implementable.

“Being in the forest and failing to see trees is a curse.” This African proverb is a reminder that we cannot afford to fail to tap opportunities that are within reach. Citizen participation in public policy implementation is one area that the continent must urgently leverage to bridge the policy implementation divide.

About the author

Dr Munang holds a PhD in Environmental Change & Policy from the University of Nottingham and an Executive Certificate in Climate Change and Energy Policy from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

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Dr. Richard Munang

Dr Munang holds a PhD in Environmental Change & Policy from the University of Nottingham and an Executive Certificate in Climate Change and Energy Policy from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

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Fiifi is a Ghanaian and currently serves as Communications and Information Officer at the West Africa Civil Society Institute. He joined the Institute in December 2020.

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AGNES ADWOA ANIMA

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Ibrahim Kwaku Gbadago is a Ghanaian. He joined the Institute in 2008 and provides janitorial services and assisting the institute's errands. Before joining the Institute, he worked at the Palestinian embassy in Accra, Ghana.

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Ruth Yakana is from Cameroon and currently the Receptionist at the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI). She joined the Institute in 2020.

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Whitnay Segnonna holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Management from the University of Benin. With 2 years of experience, she has a strong knowledge of organizational and project management. Combined with her bilingualism, she is very passionate about her work. She joined WACSI as Project Assistant on Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) for the Capacity Development Unit.

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LILLIAN DAFEAMEKPOR

Lilian Dafeamekpor is a Ghanaian and currently the Assistant to the Executive Director at the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI). She joined the Institute in 2020.

JOHN P. FRINJUAH

John P. Frinjuah has expertise and interests in civil society, international development, democracy and governance, conflict, crisis, and security. He has extensive experience working with civil society and international development organizations where he supported and managed research, programmes, and provided technical assistance on a variety of themes around public policy, governance, and development. He is an alumnus of the University of Ghana and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy - Tufts University in the United States, with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from two institutions respectively. John speaks English, French and several Ghanaian and regional West Africa languages.

GERVIN CHANASE

Gervin has extensive international development experience, including 5 years of policy advocacy and capacity building of grass root organisations. He has implemented over the years a combination of agriculture value chain, livelihood, food security and governance and rights programmes.
Prior to joining WACSI, Gervin worked on two USAID projects focusing on agriculture value chain development and governance in northern Ghana
Gervin holds a master’s degree in development & Governance from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany as well as a Masters in Global Studies from the Universities of Vienna (Austria), Leipzig (Germany) and California (Santa Barbara), USA. He is passionate social justice and inclusion.

LEANDRE BANON

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