The Ministry of Finance has published on its website Ghana’s Sustainable Financing framework, including Second Party Opinion (SPO).

The Framework is geared at providing the Government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Finance the criteria to screen programmes and projects with sustainable, green, and/or social credentials that may require financing from the National Budget.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the publication of the Framework is simply to allow investors and stakeholders to review its contents and be guided by it.  

“It should be noted that publishing the Framework does not imply any new issuance under the ICM Programme,” the Ministry added.

The development of the Sustainable Financing framework is a result of feedback from various investor engagements, following Ghana’s successful issuance of US$3.025 billion worth of bonds comprising the first 4-tranche Eurobond which included an innovative zero-coupon bond.

The Ministry explains that “Under the Framework, it is recommended that any ESG related issuances should fall under two (2) broad categories of Sustainable Financing Instruments-

“(a) those that will finance or re-finance eligible green and social projects and expenditures (Green, Social and Sustainability bonds) and (b) those that are linked to our performance versus our targets on certain defined KPIs (Sustainability Linked Bonds).”

Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry has indicated that government does not intend to access the international capital markets again this year.

This, the Ministry says is due to the “current market conditions, strong reserves position, the recent US$ 1.007 billion SDR allocation and the relatively stable currency.”