The Cost of Coastal Environmental Degradation project (World Bank, 2017) estimates the total annual risk at $47 million in 2015, which corresponds to 0.8% of GDP in the coastal zone (and 0.2% of GDP for the country as a whole).
The overall objective of the consultancy, conducted by Egis, together with partners Rebel Group (The Netherlands) and University Cape Coast (Ghana), is to develop a multi-sectoral investment plan (MSIP) for strengthening coastal risk reduction strategies and climate change adaptation in Ghana, while addressing coastal flooding, erosion, and pollution at identified hotspots.
The MSIP will be an action plan based on existing scientific knowledge on the multi-scale dynamics of the Ghanaian coast. It aims at presenting investment scenarios for the development of the Ghanaian coastal zone that address coastal risks and support the adaptation of coastal communities and assets to climate change.
Proposed projects will promote solutions that generate economic, social, and environmental benefits, such as biodiversity and ecosystem conservation, improved economic productivity and opportunity, and livelihood improvement and protection, all while considering high-level goals of poverty reduction and shared prosperity*.
*shared prosperity: notion of economic growth and equity. The aim is to distribute the increase in production and the average standard of living equitably without excluding anyone.