Citizens from the West Africa Coastal Area Resilience Project (WACA ResIP) 2 beneficiary communities and members of Coastal CSOs Forum (CCF) have urged the government to reactivate the project, warning delays will worsen erosion and destroy livelihoods.
Ghana joined WACA ResIP 2 (to be implemented over a five-year period from 2023 to 2027) in 2022 and launched it in 2024, entering a regional push for coastal resilience with The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, with the first project benefitting Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, and Togo.
The country intended using the financial support, which has both components of a grant and a loan, totaling 155 million dollars to pilot coastal resilience intervention projects in two of its four coastal regions, Volta and Greater Accra regions, identified as the main hotspots for the first phase of the Ghana WACA intervention.
In a petition to President John Dramani Mahama signed by Mr Vance Kwaku Adedze, Secretary, CCF Sub-National Working Group – Volta Region, and shared with the Ghana News Agency, the group appealed to President Mahama to remove institutional bottlenecks stalling the project.
It called the WACA project a “game changer” for coastal districts in Volta and Greater Accra regions battered by tidal waves, flooding, and pollution, with traditional leaders and assemblies in the Volta Region.
It further highlighted the project’s relevance to the citizens during the 2024 Anlo Hogbetsotso Festival, seeking broad community involvement and taking a chiefs’ learning tour to Togo and Benin to draw lessons from their Phase 1 implementation.
But WACA ReSIP 2 had stalled since 2025, a move the petition described as “breaking the neck of the coastal populations and districts whose aspirations of respite is in the wind currently.”
While acknowledging government’s efforts towards building the sea defence works at Amutinu, Blekusu and Agavedzi in Volta Region’s Ketu South, it insisted the ongoing works, popularly referred to as Blekusu Phase II should complement WACA ReSIP 2, not replace it.
“When parliament approved Ghana’s participation in the WACA project, it must have done so with the conviction that the project will reverse the pain and anguish of the vulnerable populations and communities. Today, WACA appears to have taken a downturn.”
“Discontinuing WACA will be too costly as the frequency of tidal waves and destructiveness are on the course to wipe out sections of our populations and communities, rendering the sacrifices by communities untenable, going forward,” the petition warned.