Friends of the Earth Ghana was founded in 1986 and joined the membership of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), the world’s largest grassroots environmental network uniting 73 autonomous environmental organizations from all over the world. FoE-Ghana is a national non-governmental organisation working in all the regions of Ghana.
To conserve and make sustainable use of the world’s natural resources to improve the economic and social well-being of present and future generations.
That Ghana should become an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable society.
We aim to protect the earth against further degradation caused by human activities; to empower people through participatory sustainable livelihood strategies; to ensure food security for all; to overcome poverty and inequality; to bring about transparent and accountable governance and fight corruption, especially in the natural resource sector; to preserve the earth’s ecological, cultural and ethnic diversity; to facilitate climate change resilient farming systems; and to promote sustainable resource use at the local, national and global levels. We believe that economic growth should not be a goal in itself, but should be considered as part of sustainability policies based on the rational use of natural resources. Through policies aimed at optimizing resource use by adding more value per unit, we believe the needs of all people can be met without exceeding ecological limits and while taking into account those resources that must be sustained for future generations.
The purpose of FoE-Ghana is to protect the environment and bring about socially equitable development. We do this in several ways. We strengthen the voices of people concerned about social, environmental and economic sustainability by building their capacity for dialogue and through building networks between concerned individuals and groups. Through the empowerment of women, we aim to achieve gender equity in access to resources and livelihood opportunities. We generate funding for local project and campaign work. One of our important roles is to support community projects that empower and educate people to bring about positive changes to their livelihoods. We also campaign for change towards environmentally and socially equitable development in the activities of governments, institutions, businesses and industries.