The umbrella approach will be the key approach for Swisscontact in Ghana, focusing on engaging in long term strategic partnerships to respond to global development challenges. At the core of our mission stands our strong belief that private initiative is a key driver of innovation, change and economic development and that people are able and willing to support collective action. Hence the umbrella approach for Ghana will be about forming multiple alliances in different themes, as pillars, to respond to specific development challenges.
Swisscontact will be applying its successful working principles, which the organisation uses across its entire global portfolio. These include but are not limited to Systemic Thinking and Private Sector Engagement.
Swisscontact will serve as a neutral facilitator for the partnerships within the alliances, using our technical expertise and years of program management experience. This will help prevent isolated efforts and duplication in various development activities. The "umbrella" will also bring together key global indicators that reflect combined results from each focus area.
A key function of the umbrella will be to promote aspects of quality, neutrality, focus on dual Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), climate relevance, and more, across all interventions, but in a localized manner.
The umbrella includes the overall vision for the new country program in Ghana and discusses the role of Swisscontact.
Across all interventions and pillars, Swisscontact aims to address climate change issues. This mainstreaming lens can include both adaptation and mitigation measures, depending on identified risks and opportunities related to the environment. For activities without a specific climate change focus, Swisscontact applies a strict “do no harm” approach, which guarantees, that partners and interventions don’t actively contribute to a negative impact on the climate. Since Ghana is one of the countries with which Switzerland has carbon trade agreements based on Article 6 of the Paris agreement, Swisscontact will look to see how it can work with CC mainstreaming partners such as the Ghanaian Environmental Protection agency and KliK7 on the carbon credits accumulated out of the initiatives that will be implemented under each of the pillars.
The Swisscontact “toolbox” for intervention design contains various proven approaches that can roughly be divided into two categories:
Based on these two categories, the “Green Skills & Jobs” framework also includes the climate mainstreaming aspect. This powerful framework allows for a very flexible approach, which can offer solutions for various local circumstances or starting points. While missing green skills might be a key constraint for economic development in one sector, missing green job opportunities might be the reason for lack of growth in another.
Green Skills: Green skills are becoming increasingly important in the world of work, including transversal skills that are relevant across many professions, but also specific green skills that are necessary to perform clearly defined, climate-relevant professions. It is important that the right green skills are taught, which correspond to a real demand in the labour market. This requires a good flow of communication between the educational institutions and the private sector.
Green Jobs: According to Swisscontact's analysis, all the sectors mentioned in the umbrella have the potential to become greener. This green transformation offers opportunities for the creation of new, green jobs, but also the need for existing jobs to become greener to improve their impact on the climate.