Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has revealed that it is the collective responsibility of the world to change the global financial architecture when it comes to climate change.

According to him, this will help them fit the sustainability standards needed to make climate action tenable. The West, he indicated, cannot ask cocoa farmers and developing countries like Ghana whose economies depend on industries; commodity industries like cocoa, to change their methods of agriculture, or cocoa production when they are contributing 0.04% emissions.

Mr Jinapor stated that Africans cannot be asked to make that sacrifice when they are not “historically responsible” for the situation the world finds itself in. He emphasized that whereas indeed it is the responsibility of the Ghanaian government to protect the interest of the cocoa farmer, it is the “collective responsibility of the world to change the global financial architecture, to change the global trading architecture”.

The Lands Minister noted that without the express commitment of global leaders, particularly the Western World to creating a financial and trading architecture that supports the drive for sustainability, developing nations would be unable to meet the demands of the climate action.

Cocoa value chain in Ghana

Citing the demand for cocoa growing countries to ensure that their cocoa sectors are sustainable, the Minister concerted that while the cocoa sector is a contributor to climate change through deforestation, he explained that without adequate support for cocoa farmers, all climate actions in the sector will be meaningless.

“… Because the cocoa farmer has been used [to] and has been involved in this industry and enterprise for centuries in a particular manner by expanding their farms through planting their cocoa, by harvesting it in a particular way, suddenly because of climate change which is far away from him, which he barely has contributed to or which he’s not contributed anything to its occurrence, you’re telling the cocoa farmer to change his ways of cocoa industry.”
Samuel Abu Jinapor

Mr Jinapor expressed that when the cocoa value chain is examined, which is worth billions of dollars, the cocoa farmer “literally takes home nothing, takes home peanuts and is at the lowest or the bottom end of the value chain”. Therefore, he stated that if one is going to ensure that there is a sustainable cocoa industry, the cocoa farmer’s interest, his welfare, the cocoa farmer’s pricing, the pricing of cocoa, the issue of premium and other things must be factored into it.

So, we have to continue to push. The West has a moral responsibility and a duty, and as a matter of fact, it is in their own national and collective interest for us to change the global trading architecture. And cocoa, the commodity cocoa should be one of the areas we should look at…”
Samuel Abu Jinapor

The Lands Minister highlighted that President Akufo-Addo has persistently made calls to that effect, likewise the Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Environment. He revealed that Ghana’s position is that the pricing formula, the issue of premium on cocoa coming from Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire will have to be looked at again.