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Paper short abstract

This study examines how Ghana’s policymakers and institutions understand climate finance under debt stress, the political and institutional dynamics shaping its negotiation and use, and how they perceive the development risks, benefits, and trade-offs involved.

Paper long abstract

This study examines how climate finance is negotiated, governed, and experienced in a context of high debt vulnerability, focusing on Ghana as a critical Global South case. While climate finance is presented as essential for resilience building and low-carbon transition, many developing economies increasingly depend on loan-based climate funding, raising concerns about fiscal pressures, and long-term development implications. Using a qualitative research design, the study explores how policymakers and institutional stakeholders interpret the relationship between climate finance and Ghana’s debt stress; the political, economic, and institutional factors shaping decisions to access and utilize such finance; and how actors perceive the development risks, benefits, and trade-offs associated with reliance on climate funds under debt constraints. Primary data will be generated through in-depth interviews with officials from finance and climate-related ministries, and policy institutions, supplemented by documentary analysis of finance frameworks, policy texts, and financing agreements. The study aims to illuminate power dynamics, institutional capacity challenges, governance complexities, and tensions between short-term development gains and long-term fiscal vulnerability. By foregrounding institutional voices and policy settings, the research contributes to debates on climate finance governance, debt sustainability, and development planning. Ultimately, the paper provides insights relevant to policymakers, international funders, and scholars concerned with how climate finance can be structured and governed more effectively in debt-stressed economies.