Allies or Foes? and are Two Heads Better than One? Local Government-NGO Relations Toward Climate Change: An Assessment from a Multilevel Governance Perspective

Climate change’s implications, and the search for countervailing measures through policymaking has rendered territorial governments and non-government organizations, critical defining features of multilevel governance, topical. Multilevel governance has been replicated in supra/national-level research, with insufficient focus on grassroots structures. We engaged Ghana’s case to broach stakeholder interactions in climate change advocacy planning, their underlying rationale, dynamics and forms, and challenges and potential integration areas. In addition to multilevel governance’s usefulness, this research revealed interactions through the assemblies and consultative platforms, however weak, erratic and laden with friction and mistrust, hence the need to innovatively orient governance to suit local needs.