Minister of State in Charge of Climate Change and Sustainability, Issifu Seidu, has called for climate-vulnerable countries undergoing debt restructuring to retain access to climate finance, insisting that exclusion could undermine development gains and efforts to achieve debt sustainability.
The country said timely financing was essential to help vulnerable economies respond to climate shocks without diverting scarce domestic resources from development priorities or resorting to emergency borrowing.
He made the call in an interview with Ghanaian journalists after a ministerial dialogue on the margins of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) annual meetings in Bangkok.
The dialogue formally initiated the process to establish a US$500 million Lifeline Fund by the V20 group of climate-vulnerable economies.
The proposed facility is intended to provide rapid financial support to countries facing climate shocks.
Mr Seidu credited Barbados with leading advocacy for reforms to the international climate finance architecture to better address the needs of climate-vulnerable countries.
He said climate shocks repeatedly reversed development progress, compelling governments to redirect limited domestic resources towards emergency response and recovery.
“We realise that anytime these countries go through debt restructuring, they are excluded from the financing arrangement. So, if they are taking difficult decisions, these difficult decisions should not exclude them from these opportunities of climate fund,” he said.
Mr Seidu said the exclusion created competing fiscal demands for governments, which had to meet debt-servicing obligations, finance development programmes and respond to floods, droughts and other climate-related disasters.
He said the proposed Lifeline Fund would help address the financing gap by providing quicker access to resources for climate interventions, avoiding the lengthy bureaucratic processes associated with traditional climate funds.
The Minister said the exclusion of countries undergoing debt restructuring was counterproductive, particularly when they had taken difficult but necessary measures to restore debt sustainability in line with international expectations.
“If they are taking difficult decisions, those decisions should not exclude them from opportunities for climate finance,” he said.
Mr Seidu reaffirmed Ghana’s commitment to sustained advocacy to address structural inequalities at the intersection of climate justice and debt sustainability.
He said responding promptly to climate shocks could also support debt sustainability by preventing costly reversals in development and reducing the need for emergency borrowing after disasters.
The Minister called on strategic partners to complement government efforts to support vulnerable countries and communities.
He also urged investors to collaborate in developing sustainable solutions and share resilience-building successes across the Global South.