Ofori-Atta to chair climate change meeting involving 58 countries
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, will preside over a meeting of 58 finance ministers from nations whose economies are most vulnerable to climate change.
The meeting is scheduled for Sunday, October 16, 2022, in Washington DC in the United States of America.
Known as the V20 Ministers of Finance Annual Dialogue, it is held yearly alongside the World Bank-International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings.
It will be attended by Finance Ministers from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific.
Mr Ofori-Atta said, “Ghana welcomes the challenge of leading the world’s biggest grouping of climate-vulnerable economies to find ways to protect economic growth amidst growing risks posed by climate change”.
“We aim to keep our economies thriving, provide jobs for our people and protect our industries while advocating for solutions to the clime crisis,” he added.
According to a press release issued by V20, during the meeting, the Finance Minister, along with heads and senior representatives of international multilateral institutions, will tackle pressing issues such as debt repayments to finance climate action, V20 as an official group within IMF and World Bank.
Other issues are IMF’s newly created Resilience and Sustainability Trust as well as Climate Prosperity Plans.
V20 has ongoing initiatives with G7 and G20 countries to tackle global climate finance as well as loss and damage issues.
Ghana is working with V20 and Climate Vulnerable Forum(CVF) for COP27 in Egypt from November 6-18, 2022, to deliver concrete results in terms of establishing international funding for loss and damage through a dedicated new instrument.
Formed in 2015, the V20 Group of Finance Ministers is a dedicated cooperation of economies systematically vulnerable to climate change.
V20 Group members are also states of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF).
V20 Group membership stands at 58 economies, representing some 1.5 billion people, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Eswatini and Ethiopia.
Others are The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Hat, Honduras, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, and the Marshall Islands.
The rest are Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Palau Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Senegal, South Sudan, Sri Lanka Sudan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu Viet Nam and Yemen as a UN non-member observer State.