Greenfaith Ghana, a multi-faith organisation with its Africa headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, has launched a circle in the Bolgatanga vicinity to empower people of faith, particularly women, to contribute to food security. Greenfaith, through its circle, seeks to leverage the influence of religious leaders and bodies to empower communities within the Bolgatanga Municipality to promote community involvement from the grassroots perspective on issues of climate change. It also seeks to promote local-level participation that encourages climate-smart practices to enhance agriculture production in the communities. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Bolgatanga, Mr Hilary Adongo, the Circle Lead for Greenfaith Bolgatanga Circle, said the impact of climate change was multifaceted, particularly threatening food security in the region and needed collective efforts to ensure adaptation. He said apart from the high temperatures and erratic rainfall, leading to prolonged droughts and poor rainfall dist ribution as well as flooding as a result of climate change in some parts of the country, the phenomenon had adversely affected agriculture production. He said household and community food systems were being threatened due to poor yields resulting from climate change effects and there was an urgent need to empower rural communities to adapt to the changing climate and withstand the impacts. 'One of the pillars of Greenfaith Africa and Greenfaith Ghana is that we believe faith leaders have a voice and an influence that can be tapped to address climate change issues and other social challenges,' he said. Going forward, he said, the organisation would work with religious leaders and people of faith to engage communities and other stakeholders with a focus on ensuring food security and improvement in livelihoods. 'Our focus is to encourage people to engage in home gardening, and address food losses through food preservation and other nature-based solutions.' Source: Ghana News Agency