Proforest Africa secures follow-up grant from Walmart Foundation to expand sustainable landscape work in the Asunafo-Asutifi HIA, Ghana

Proforest has secured a follow up grant of $1 million from the Walmart Foundation to scale its landscape work in the Asunafo-Asutifi Hotspot Intervention Area (HIA) in the Ahafo Region of Ghana. This grant will help strengthen a collective platform for social and environmental governance and promote sustainable, deforestation-free, and climate-resilient cocoa production in the region.

The first grant from the Walmart Foundation laid a strong foundation for Proforest to replicate similar interventions in other parts of the Asunafo Asutifi landscape. It helped to establish the Dadiesoaba Community Resource Management Area (CREMA), built and equipped a Rural Service Centre with an input shop, set up a revolving fund, and rehabilitated 266ha of degraded on-reserve area in the Abonyere forest reserve using the Modified Taungya System. 

“The revolving fund has encouraged a culture of savings among women in the project target area, leading to a significant increase in our membership from 17,500 to nearly 20,000”, said Anthony Sie, the Manager for Asunafo North Co-operative Cocoa Farmers Mutual Support, the revolving fund manager.

The revolving fund is expected to grow and serve as a source of low-interest credit for additional livelihood activities and on-farm investments for the communities within the project area. 

The support from the Walmart Foundation helped catalyse the implementation of the Asunafo-Asutifi HIA management plan, which will contribute significantly to the strategic goal of achieving a deforestation-free and climate resilient production landscape with improved livelihood conditions of farmers in the Asunafo-Asutifi landscape,

said Dr. Augustus Asamoah, Principal Project Manager; Proforest Africa.  

 “Through close collaboration with the Forestry Commission, COCOBOD, the HIA Management Board and other key stakeholders, Proforest is working to strengthen landscape governance, and empower local communities to proactively address social and environmental challenges, notably deforestation in the landscape,” he added.

The follow-up grant will establish a new CREMA, covering about 21,000 hectares in the Asumura enclave, to strengthen community level leadership for effective social and environmental governance. The new CREMA is expected to play a key role in facilitating collective action among local communities for forests rehabilitation and protection.  Other key activities under this grant include:

• Building a new Rural Service Center to support the Ahafo region
• Launching a new revolving fund to expand access to low-credit loans to the community
• Rehabilitation of 250 hectares of degraded on-forest area through the Modified Taungya System (MTS)
• Enhancing tree stock in about 8,000 hectares of cocoa-forest mosaics of the Asumura enclave
•  Training and creating awareness of Ghana Cocoa Traceability System to ensure smallholder farmers have better understanding of the EUDR compliance requirements.