GCI Centres of Excellence

Applied Knowledge, Specialist Capacity and On-the-Ground Impact

GCI’s Centres of Excellence are purpose-built platforms that bring together dedicated expertise, partnerships, and resources around a single substantive challenge. Each Centre operates as an applied knowledge and delivery hub — conducting research, developing practical tools, delivering targeted training, engaging at the policy level, and directly supporting communities and organisations facing real-world challenges in its focus area.

The Centres do not sit in isolation from the rest of GCI’s work. They deepen and anchor it, generating evidence that informs advisory services, producing content that feeds into training programmes, and creating the institutional credibility that strengthens GCI’s partnerships across Africa and internationally.

GCI currently operates four Centres of Excellence:

1. Climate Action Centre

Carbon project development, net zero strategy, climate finance and NDC advisory

2. Resilience Centre

Vulnerability assessment, DRR planning, early warning systems and adaptive governance

3. Plastics Centre

Plastic waste reduction, circular economy solutions, research and policy advocacy

4. Energy Centre

Renewable energy access, clean technology deployment, energy policy and green transition advisory

Carbon project development, net zero strategy, climate finance and NDC advisory

Africa is at the forefront of a climate challenge it did little to create. Droughts, erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, and accelerating land degradation are not projections for a distant future but lived realities for communities across the continent today. The GCI Climate Action Centre exists to address this challenge head-on, providing the technical capacity, applied research, and project development infrastructure that Ghana and the broader African region need to respond with urgency and credibility.

The Centre operates as GCI’s primary vehicle for translating climate commitments into measurable on-the-ground outcomes. It works across the intersection of policy, finance, and community practice, recognising that climate action succeeds only when these three dimensions move together.

What the Centre Does

At the core of the Centre’s work is the development and registration of carbon offset and carbon credit projects aligned to international voluntary and compliance market standards, including the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Gold Standard, and the Article 6 mechanisms under the Paris Agreement. Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) provide the national framework within which GCI identifies viable project categories, including forestry and land use, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and cookstove programmes.

The Centre manages the full project cycle, from feasibility assessment and baseline studies through to monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV). Beyond carbon markets, it provides structured climate risk and resilience advisory services to governments, municipalities, and private sector organisations. This includes scenario analysis aligned to TCFD, climate vulnerability assessments for infrastructure projects, and the integration of climate adaptation measures into investment planning.

The Centre actively supports clients in accessing green bonds, climate funds, bilateral grants, and blended finance instruments that can convert adaptation and mitigation commitments into funded programmes.

Key Focus Areas

Carbon offset project development, registration, and management
NDC implementation advisory and tracking for national and sub-national clients
Climate risk assessment and TCFD-aligned disclosure support
Renewable energy and clean technology project scoping and advisory
Carbon footprinting and net zero pathway development for organisations
Training and capacity building in climate finance and carbon markets
Community-level climate adaptation programme design and delivery
Research on climate impacts, green infrastructure, and low-carbon development

Vulnerability assessment, DRR planning, early warning systems and adaptive governance

When a flood wipes out a farming community’s livelihood or a drought pushes a district’s water system to the edge, the consequences fall hardest on people who had the least to begin with. Disaster risk is not an abstract concept in Africa. It is a structural condition that intersects with poverty, inadequate infrastructure, weak early warning systems, and communities that have historically been planned around rather than planned with.

The GCI Resilience Centre was established to change that dynamic. It brings together technical expertise in disaster risk reduction (DRR), community development, infrastructure resilience, and social protection to help communities, local governments, and national agencies build the kind of adaptive capacity that outlasts any single intervention.

What the Centre Does

The Centre’s work begins with evidence. It conducts community-level vulnerability assessments and multi-hazard risk profiling that map exposure to flooding, drought, disease outbreak, fire, and other climate-related and environmental hazards. These assessments are conducted with communities rather than about them, ensuring that local knowledge informs every layer of the analysis.

From that evidence base, the Centre designs and supports the implementation of community resilience programmes covering early warning systems, emergency preparedness planning, climate-smart infrastructure, and livelihood diversification strategies. It works closely with District Assemblies, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), and development partners to embed risk-informed planning into local governance structures.

The Centre engages at the policy level, contributing to national frameworks for disaster risk governance and supporting the mainstreaming of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction into Ghanaian and pan-African planning processes.

What the Centre Does

Community vulnerability and multi-hazard risk assessments
Climate-smart infrastructure design and resilient community planning
Sendai Framework alignment and DRR policy advisory
Livelihood resilience and social protection programme design
Post-disaster recovery planning and build-back-better strategies
Training for local government officials, community leaders, and first responders
Research on disaster risk, community resilience, and adaptive governance in Africa

Resilience is not built in crisis. It is built in the years before crisis arrives. The GCI Resilience Centre is GCI’s investment in giving Africa’s most vulnerable communities the tools to write a different story.

Plastic waste reduction, circular economy solutions, research and policy advocacy

Ghana produces an estimated one million tonnes of plastic waste every year. A significant share of that waste never reaches a formal collection or recycling system. It accumulates in drains and waterways, washes into the ocean, degrades into microplastics that enter food systems, and creates chronic public health risks in communities where informal waste management is the only option available.

The GCI Plastics Centre was created to take that challenge seriously, in a structured, evidence-driven, and practically oriented way. It operates at the junction of environmental science, community practice, circular economy development, and policy advocacy, working with producers, retailers, local governments, communities, and waste sector stakeholders to develop approaches that are both technically sound and workable under African conditions.

What the Centre Does

The Centre’s starting point is research. It investigates plastic waste generation patterns, composition, and flow across urban and peri-urban environments in Ghana and the broader West African region, generating the kind of granular, context-specific data that effective interventions require.

On the practice side, the Centre develops and pilots circular economy solutions for plastic waste, including extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks, waste-to-value initiatives, and the development of plastic credits aligned to emerging international standards. It actively explores and supports the use of recycled plastics in construction materials, paving, and local manufacturing, creating economic incentives for collection and processing.

The Centre places deliberate focus on the informal waste sector: waste pickers and informal recyclers are often the most effective point of plastic recovery in African cities, and the Centre works to formalise, equip, and fairly compensate their contribution. At the policy level, it supports businesses in developing plastic reduction strategies and contributes to national plastics legislation and the global process for a binding UN Plastics Treaty.

Key Focus Areas

Plastic waste mapping, characterisation, and flow analysis
Circular economy solutions including EPR frameworks and plastic credits
Waste-to-value programme design and pilot implementation
Integration of recycled plastics into construction and building materials
Support for informal waste pickers: formalisation, training, and value chain inclusion
Corporate plastic reduction strategy and sustainability reporting advisory
Community education and behaviour change programmes on plastic waste
Policy advocacy on plastic regulation and alignment to the UN Plastics Treaty
Research on microplastic contamination, health impacts, and marine plastic pollution

Plastic pollution is not simply a waste management problem. It is a design problem, a governance problem, and a development problem. The GCI Plastics Centre exists to address all three, starting with the communities and supply chains that need workable solutions the most.

Renewable energy access, clean technology deployment, energy policy and green transition advisory

Access to reliable, affordable, and clean energy remains one of the most consequential unresolved challenges in sub-Saharan Africa. Over 600 million people across the continent still live without electricity, and a far larger number rely on solid biomass for cooking, with serious consequences for health, productivity, gender equality, and environmental sustainability.

The GCI Energy Centre was established to work on that gap in a focused and practical way. It brings together expertise in renewable energy project development, energy policy, clean technology, and green transition strategy to support communities, governments, businesses, and development organisations in Ghana and across Africa in making real progress on energy access, energy efficiency, and the shift away from fossil fuel dependence.

What the Centre Does

The Centre’s work covers the full energy transition spectrum. On the supply side, it supports the development, feasibility assessment, and implementation of renewable energy projects including solar photovoltaic, mini-grid systems, wind, biomass, and small-scale hydropower. Particular attention is given to off-grid and distributed energy solutions that can extend reliable power to communities and enterprises that centralised grid expansion is unlikely to reach within a meaningful timeframe.

On the demand side, the Centre provides energy efficiency advisory and auditing services to commercial, industrial, and public sector organisations. Energy efficiency is often the most cost-effective first step in an organisation’s transition strategy, and the Centre helps clients understand where energy is being lost, what interventions are technically and financially viable, and how efficiency improvements can be incorporated into broader sustainability and ESG reporting frameworks.

The Centre also engages at the policy and institutional level, supporting national and sub-national energy planning processes, contributing to regulatory reform discussions, and providing technical input into Ghana’s NDC implementation as it relates to the energy sector. Research is a core function, investigating barriers to renewable energy adoption, the economics of energy access in low-income communities, and the intersection of energy transition and social equity.

What the Centre Does

Renewable energy project development, feasibility assessment, and implementation support
Off-grid and mini-grid system design and community energy access programmes
Energy efficiency auditing and advisory for commercial, industrial, and public sector clients
Clean cooking solutions and the transition away from solid biomass dependence
Green transition strategy and net zero energy pathway development
Energy policy advisory and support for NDC implementation in the energy sector
Climate finance mobilisation for energy access and renewable energy projects
Training and capacity building in renewable energy, energy management, and green transition
Research on energy access, clean technology adoption, and energy-related social equity

Africa does not need to follow the fossil fuel path that industrialised the rest of the world. It has the resources, and increasingly the tools and the financing frameworks, to build something better from the start. The GCI Energy Centre exists to make that case — and, more importantly, to help make it happen.