d i s c u s s i o n pa p e r n u m B e r 1 5 decemBer 2010 d e v e l o p m e n t a n d c l i m at e c h a n g e d i s c u s s i o n pa p e r s 1 58902 d e v e l o p m e n t a n d c l i m a t e c h a n g e The Social Dimensions of Adaptation to Climate Change in Ghana d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R n U m B E R 1 5 n o V E m B E R 2 0 1 0 E c o n o m i c s o f A d A p t A t i o n t o c l i m A t E c h A n g E The Social Dimensions of Adaptation to Climate Change in Ghana Joseph A. Yaro (University of ghana at legon) With assistance from tony dzidzinyo dogbe (participatory development Associates, ghana), livia Bizikova (international institute of sustainable development--iisd), philip Bailey (EssA technologies, ltd.), george Ahiable (participatory development Associates, ghana),tia Yahaya (participatory development Associates, ghana), and Kamil Abdul salam (participatory development Associates, ghana) Papers in this series are not formal publications of the World Bank. They are circulated to encourage thought and discussion. The use and citation of this paper should take this into account. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank. Copies are available from the Environment Department of the World Bank by calling 202-473-3641. © 2010 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/ The World Bank 1818 H St., NW Washington, DC 20433 U.S.A. Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org/climatechange E-mail: feedback@worldbank.org All rights reserved. November 2010 This paper is based upon work that has been commissioned by the World Bank as part of the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change study. The results reported in the paper are preliminary and subject to revision. The analysis, results, and views expressed in the paper are those of the authors alone and do not represent the position of the World Bank or any of its member countries. Papers in this series are not formal publications of the World Bank. They are circulated to encourage thought and discussion. Copies are available from the World Bank Environment Department by calling 202-473-3641. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown or any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of the World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptances of such boundaries. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS The material in this publication is copyrighted. Copying and/or transmitting portions or all of this work without permission may be a violation of appli- cable law. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work and will normally grant permission to reproduce portions of the work promptly. For permission to photocopy or reprint any part of this work, please send a request with complete information to the Copyright Clearance Center Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; telephone 978-75-4470; Internet: www.copyright.com Cover photo courtesy of Arne Hoel/World Bank. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS AcRonYms And ABBREViAtions vii glossARY of tERms ix AcKnoWlEdgmEnts xi EXEcUtiVE sUmmARY xii 1. intRodUction And oVERViEW 1 Study Rationale and Approach 1 Conceptual Framework 2 Key Areas of Inquiry 2 Asset and Livelihood Systems 2 Vulnerability and Climate Change 2 Policy and Institutional Framework for Climate Resilience 3 People in Places: Socio-Spatial Approaches to Adaptation 3 2. sociAl dimEnsions of climAtE chAngE in ghAnA 5 Expected Physical Impacts of Climate Change in Ghana 5 Social Vulnerability in Ghana 8 National Planning for Climate Change 10 3. REsEARch mEthodologY 12 Research Strategy and Questions 12 Site Selection and Sampling 12 Background to Sites 14 Methods: Tools Employed 15 Approach to Data Analysis 15 Interactions with other EACC Sector Study Teams and Bank Staff 15 Limitations of Study 16 iv t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A 4. fiEldWoRK REsUlts 17 Overview and Introduction to Areas of Investigation 17 Household Asset Base 17 Resource Access and Land Tenure 18 Existing Livelihood Activities 19 Migration Choices 21 Experience with Past Climate Variability and Hazards 22 Autonomous Adaptation Practices and Household Decision Making 26 Existing Community Policies, Laws, or Practices that Hinder or Facilitate Adaptation 28 Decentralization, Local Governance, and Participation in Formal Organizations 30 Local Assessments of Existing Public Investments and Access to Services 31 Policies and Institutional Capacities needed to Facilitate Adaptation 33 Cross-Cutting Observations: Coping Strategies versus Adaptation 34 Local/Community Adaptation Mechanisms/Actions 35 Key Conclusions from Fieldwork 35 Livelihoods and Climate Change Adaptation 35 Axes of Social Vulnerability and Social Exclusion 36 Gender 36 Ethnicity and Migrant Status 36 Occupational Grouping 37 Typologies of Vulnerable Groups and Driving Factors 37 Urban and Rural Livelihoods and Pro-Poor Adaptation 38 Role of Formal and Informal Institutions 38 External Influences: Market Integration and Policy Regimes 38 5. pARticipAtoRY scEnARio dEVElopmEnt (psd) WoRKshop REsUlts 39 PSD Workshops: Design Overview 39 Overview of Results from Local and National Workshops 40 Overview of the Current Situation 40 Future Development Priorities 41 Current and future impacts of changing climate and variability 42 Range of Stakeholders and Key Preference Criteria for Options 45 Adaptation Options: Key Sectoral Themes 45 General Adaptation Options 45 Social Services: Health and Education 46 Water Management, Agriculture, and Social Security 47 Adaptation Pathways 48 Sequencing and Leveraging among Options 48 Synergies and Trade-offs among Options 49 Relative Prevalence of "Hard" versus "Soft" Adaptation Options 50 Local Lenses and National Priorities: Divergence and Convergence 52 Policy Preconditions and Institutional Base 52 Conclusions from Workshop Track 53 d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s v 6. sYnthEsis And discUssion 54 Overview of Emerging Themes 54 Key Factors in Household and Area Resilience 55 Drivers of Vulnerability in Climate Change Contexts 56 Local and National Discourse on Climate and Hazards: Inputs to Decision Support Systems 56 Scale: Leveraging National and Subnational Policies and Investments for Pro-Poor Adaptation 57 Multisectoral Analysis and Programming 58 7. conclUsions And REcommEndAtions 60 Summary of Findings 60 Responding to Direct and Indirect Impact of Climate Changes 61 Social Risk Management: Asset Development and Social Protection 62 Inputs to Adaptive Capacity to Support Vulnerable Groups 63 Policy Design and Implementation 63 Program Design and Implementation 64 REfEREncEs 65 AppEndiXEs 71 Appendix 1. Household Questionnaire 71 Appendix 2. Guide for PRA's: Themes, Social Groups, and Methods 81 Appendix 3. Village Entry Guide 83 Appendix 4. No. of Households interviewed (site; income tier; gender of respondent) 84 Appendix 5. No. of Focus Group Discussions Held 85 Appendix 6. List of Key Informant Interviews with Dates 86 Appendix 7. Sample PSD Workshop Agenda 87 Appendix 8. Rainfall Totals for Selected Stations 88 TAbles table 1. scenarios of mean Annual change in Rainfall for Ecological Zones (%) 7 table 2. scenarios of mean Annual temperature change for Ecological Zones 7 table 3. selection of Research sites 13 table 4. some prevailing climatic impacts in three Ecological Zones in ghana 25 table 5. hazards Endangering livelihoods by Zones 26 table 6. institutions that provide support in Kamaso (forest Zone) 32 table 7. overview of current socioeconomic issues in three sociogeographic Zones in ghana 41 table 8. future Visions for Each Zone from national Workshop 42 table 9. Key Elements of the future Visions for ghana 43 table 10. major past/projected climatic impacts by Zones in ghana 43 table 11. Areas of high impacts and their consequences 44 table 12. Key climatic impacts and Adaptation Actions focused on potentially Vulnerable groups 46 vi t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A table 13. Adaptation Responses--social: health services and Education 47 table 14. Adaptation Responses: Water management, Agriculture, and social security 47 table 15. overview of Adaptation pathways for ghana by time horizon and by Zone 48 table 16. impacts and identified hard and soft Adaptation measures (Agriculture & Water) 51 table 17. Areas of high impacts and identified Responses (other impacts) 51 Figures figure 1. ghana's Agroecological Zones of ghana 8 figure 2. map showing distribution of poverty by Agroecological Zones 9 figure 3. Key Elements of psd Workshop design 39 vii ACrONymS ANd ABBrEviATiONS AMA Accra Metropolitan Assembly CBO Community-based organization DA District Assembly DEDA Dagme East District Assembly DESD District Environmental and Sanitation Development EACC Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change EPA Environmental Protection Agency GES Ghana Education Services GHS Ghana Health Services GCM General circulation model GPRS Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy KNDA Kasena Nankana District Assembly INC Initial National Communication MOFA Ministry of Food and Agriculture MOH Ministry of Health MLG Ministry of Local Government NADMO National Disaster Management Organisation NGO Nongovernmental organization PDA Pru District Assembly PSD Participatory scenario development SARI Savannah Accelerated Research Institute TA Traditional authority TMA Techiman Municipal Assembly UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ZOVFA Zuri Organic Vegetable Farmers Association Note: Unless otherwise noted, all dollars are U.S. dollars. ix GLOSSAry OF TErmS Climate change Refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. Adaptation This usage differs from that in the United Nations Adjustment in natural or human systems in response to Framework Convention on Climate Change actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, (UNFCCC), which defines climate change as a "change which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportuni- in climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to ties. Various types of adaptation can be distinguished, human activity that alters the composition of the global including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private atmosphere and that is in addition to natural variability and public adaptation, and autonomous and planned observed over comparable time periods" (IPCC 2001a; adaptation (IPCC 2001a; 2001b) 2001b). Adaptive Capacity Disaster The ability of a system to adjust to climate change A serious disruption of the functioning of a community (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate or a society causing widespread human, material, potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, economic, or environmental losses that exceed the abil- or to cope with the consequences (IPCC 2001a; 2001b). ity of the affected community/society to cope using its own resources (UN/ISDR 2002). Climate Climate can be viewed as average weather. It represents Livelihood the state of the climate system over a given time period Comprises the capabilities, assets (including both mate- and is usually described by the means and variation of rial and social resources), and activities required for a variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind, means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can most commonly associated with weather (IPCC 2001a; cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and 2001b). maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural Climate variability resource base (Chambers and Conway 1992). Refers to variations in the mean state and other statis- tics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of Mainstreaming extremes, etc.) of the climate on all temporal and spatial Used in this document to describe the integration of scales beyond that of individual weather events. climate issues in decision making processes such as Variability may be due to natural internal processes planning and budgeting. within the climate system (internal variability), or to variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability) (IPCC 2001a; 2001b). x t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Mitigation Sensitivity Entails all human interventions that reduce the sources Sensitivity is the degree to which a system is affected, or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases (IPCC 2001a; either adversely or beneficially, by climate-related stim- 2001b). uli. The effect may be direct (e.g., a change in crop yield in response to a change in the mean, range, or variability Poverty of temperature) or indirect (e.g., damages caused by an Now widely viewed as encompassing both income and increase in the frequency of coastal flooding due to sea non-income dimensions of deprivation, including lack level rise) (IPCC 2001a; 2001b). of income and other material means; lack of access to basic social services such as education, health, and safe Vulnerability water; lack of personal security; and lack of empower- The degree to which a system is susceptible to, or ment to participate in the political process and in deci- unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, sions that influence someone's life (UNDP 1997). including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of Resilience climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensi- The amount of change a system can undergo without tivity, and its adaptive capacity (IPCC 2001a; 2001b). changing state (IPCC 2001b). xi ACKNOWLEdGmENTS (PDA), where the study team was led by Tony Dogbe and comprised Joseph Yaro, George Ahiable, Tia Yahaya, and Kamil Abdul Salam. Support in methodol- The social component of the Economics of Adaptation ogy and workshop design and for training of trainers for to Climate Change (EACC) study was developed the Participatory Scenario Development (PSD) work- through the joint efforts of the World Bank Social shops was provided by Livia Bizikova (IISD), Philip Development (SDV) and Environment Departments Bailey, and Samantha Boardley (all ESSA). A separate (ENV) and the LCR, AFR, EAP, and SAR Regions of report is available summarizing this PSD work, along the World Bank; ESSA Technologies Ltd and the with a training of trainers manual at www.worldbank. International Institute for Sustainable Development org/eacc. (IISD), Canada; and research institutions in Bolivia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, and We could not have completed this work without the Vietnam. The study was undertaken by a core team led continuous logistical support provided by Hawanty by Robin Mearns and comprising Anne Kuriakose, Page (ENV), Grace Aguilar (ENV), Mustafa Carina Bachofen, Nilufar Ahmad, and Minna Kononen Pajazetovic, and Carmen Martinel (both SDV). We (all SDV). An overall synthesis report of all six country gratefully acknowledge editorial services provided by reports is available at www.worldbank.org/eacc. The Robert Livernash, and production management study was designed and implemented in close collabora- provided by Danielle Christophe (SDV) and Robert tion with the team leader for the overall EACC study Reinecke. (Sergio Margulis), and Ana Bucher, Laurent Cretegny, Urvashi Narain, Kiran Pandey, Robert Schneider (all The Ghana country study has benefited greatly from ENV), and sector consultants. peer review comments and other feedback from World Bank staff, including Carolyn Winter (AFTCS), and The Ghana country study for the social component was from external peer reviewers, including Sean Doolan, led by Robin Mearns and Anne Kuriakose (SDV), in Edward Carr, Katrina Brown, and Richard Klein. collaboration with the EACC country team leader Peter Kristensen. The research partner in Ghana was Any remaining errors and omissions are entirely those Participatory Development Associates Ghana Ltd. of the country study team. xii EXECUTivE SUmmAry planning. It provides the needed inputs for planning a sustainable future. The need to pay attention to community-level actions/responses through direct In partnership with the governments of the support and mainstreaming into national policy cannot Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the World Bank be overemphasized. instituted a global study on the economics of adapta- tion to climate change. The program's objective is to This study seeks to: assist decision makers in developing countries in inte- grating adaptation measures into national development · Identify some robust adaptation strategies and strategies, policies, and budgets. The economics of options at the local level. adaptation to climate change is a new research area and · Provide a basis for understanding how to structure no agreed methodology to assess overall costs has yet adaptation interventions so as to benefit the most emerged. An understanding of the full array of adapta- vulnerable households and communities within vul- tion options, including institutional and policy changes, nerable regions. is crucial to prioritize the most effective adaptation · Assess the impact of socioeconomic status, gender, strategies. and poverty in shaping a range of types of vulnera- bility of different social groups to climate change. The study is intended to help decision makers in devel- · Provide cost-benefit estimates for alternative adap- oping countries to better understand and assess the risks tation responses in different agroecological zones. posed by climate change and to better design strategies to adapt to climate change and variability. This requires The data used in this study are predominantly primary costing, prioritizing, sequencing, and integrating robust in nature, with background information coming from adaptation strategies into their development plans and secondary sources. The methodology draws upon a budgets. Furthermore, this requires strategies to deal range of analytical frameworks, including the sustain- with high uncertainty, potentially high future damages, able livelihoods framework, assets and capabilities and competing needs for investments in social and frameworks, institutional risk pooling approaches, social economic development. The study is further intended to risk management framework, and environmental enti- inform the international community's efforts, including tlements analysis. The research process was divided into UNFCCC and the Bali Action Plan, to provide access phases, including (a) data review and identification of to adequate, predictable, and sustainable support, and to hotspots and vulnerability/livelihood profiles based on provide new and additional resources to help the most key vulnerabilities and a review of the policy and insti- vulnerable developing countries meet adaptation costs. tutional environment; and (b) validation of livelihood This report presents important knowledge on Ghana's profiles at the field level and identification of alterna- vulnerability to climate change and various adaptation tive, robust adaptation pathways using participatory options that could be integrated into sectoral and spatial methods to elicit plausible scenarios. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s xiii We conducted five participatory scenario development differentiation and access to resources--as enabled (PSD) workshops involving a wide range of stakehold- by both formal and informal institutions--accounts ers, including government officials, local experts, and for the differential adaptations people face in their representatives to explore the future in rigorous, creative, communities. The nature of the inheritance system, and policy relevant ways. These workshops explored governance systems, and land tenure relations are climate impacts and challenges, existing adaptation important. Climate-enhanced social exclusion is on measures, and future developmental aspirations. They the rise as the number of "environmental refugees" suggested rigorous adaptation strategies to meet the increases with each climate hazard. The main cate- visions. gories of vulnerable groups include widows, dis- abled, aged, children, youths, divorced women, and Key findings include: the poor in general. · Adaptation to climate change within the various · The current climate challenges--such as droughts, livelihood systems in each agroecological zone con- flooding, and increases in sea level--are severer and stitutes an important means of obtaining sustainable occur much more frequently than a few decades livelihoods. Adaptation potential is determined by ago. The northern savannah bears the brunt of cli- the social relations and processes that mediate mate-induced livelihood impacts; agriculture is dev- access to resources. Social relations reflect interests astated and natural-resource-based activities are of diverse groups, often influenced by cultural, eco- threatened by the consequent degradation. In the nomic, and physical change in the quest to achieve transition and forest belts, though droughts are not sustainable livelihoods and exert influence. Both ex a major problem, variations in rainfall--especially ante and ex post strategies are used by people of deficits in the number of rainy days--pose new different socioeconomic status. The popular adapta- challenges to rural livelihoods. There is a shorten- tion strategies include livelihood diversification, ing of the farming season in many places and the adapting planting dates, and changes in crop variet- gradual fading of the secondary growing season in ies planted. Multiple livelihoods as an adaptation transition areas. The incidence of floods is espe- strategy are important in all the zones as a realistic cially high in flood-prone areas in the coastal and adaptation strategy. The mix of coping and adapta- northern savannahs, as well as river towns. Stormy tion strategies is necessary for the survival of the weather affects traditional structures across the poor. Coping strategies buy time for people to entire country, and also damages/destroys modern effectively plan the future based on the past and infrastructure. The traditional signs for predicting imagined scenarios of what trends will occur. weather patterns are no longer reliable. Dark clouds · With regard to sequencing adaptation pathways, and winds no longer result in rain, while the start interventions need to be considered for the short, and end of the different seasons is less predictable. medium, and long terms. Short-term interventions Coastal communities are under siege from the rav- are less expensive and constitute advocacy, relief, aging sea as it gradually surges inland. and support of existing strategies. Medium-term · The direct and indirect impacts of climate change interventions involve more infrastructure and insti- are specific to different sociogeographic zones and tutional capacities needed to build area resilience, livelihood groups and sectors. In sectoral terms, which is identified as the weakest link in Ghanaian agriculture, water, physical infrastructure, health, adaptive capacity. Long-term interventions are a and the environment are the most affected. continuation of "hard" strategies of infrastructure Indirectly, climate change ultimately leads to mal- and technology, but with a focus on management nutrition resulting from food insecurity, health capacities to ensure sustainable integrated resource problems, and conflicts due to resource scarcity and management. Adaptation strategies need specific degradation, and contributes to the decision to leveraging, especially beginning with the agricul- migrate. ture, water, and services sectors, which have syner- · Vulnerability to climate change is not uniform but gistic positive relationships with each other and differs according to social groups and sectors. Social other sectors. In terms of location, interventions xiv t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A should be distributed according to the nature of promote effective governance, transparency, sound threats and impacts and vulnerability financial management, systems for monitoring and characteristics. evaluation, capacity building, operational indepen- · There are critical pro-poor measures that need to be dence, local participation, endogenous development, in place at the national level to ensure that adaptive appropriate technology, and collaboration between strategies will be effective and will help the poorest implementing agencies and local communities. and most vulnerable. These include the need for (a) stronger government commitment to redistribu- r E C Om m E Nd ATi O N S tive policies; (b) clear and effective rule of law regarding natural resource ownership and exploita- Policy design and implementation processes need tion; (c) shifts from the current open access cautious and collaborative crafting that respond to the approach to natural resource utilization to a user concerns of vulnerable groups with regard to climate rights approach; and (d) more efficient and trans- and other challenges. Mainstreaming climate change parent use of resources. issues into the wider policy framework should aim at · At both the local and national levels, there is a building adaptive capacity at the household, area, and focus on a mixture of both hard and soft adaptation national levels. Prioritization among the numerous measures. Soft adaptation measures dominate the competing objectives needs an incremental policy short-term suggestions, while hard adaptation mea- framework for designated adaptation pathways designed sures are proposed for the medium and long term in over time. Program design should focus on increasing all zones except for the coastal fishing community, resilience, building adaptive capacity, reducing vulnera- where hard measures are needed more immediately. bility and poverty, enhancing productivity, ensuring There is a relative predominance of hard over soft environmental sustainability, promoting sustainable live- adaptation measures because of the low investments lihoods, and enhancing national capacity. This holistic in social and economic investments over the years, policy and program implementation framework requires which have led to an adaptation deficit in infra- the technical and financial support of the international structural development. The high cost of these community. The success of Ghana in meeting the chal- investments would require substantial external sup- lenges of climate change and variability hinges on its port in order to reduce the adaptation deficit. own internal organization and the fidelity of the inter- · Policies at the national and regional levels-- national community in honoring their promises and accompanied by institutional support--should pledges. 1 1. iNTrOdUCTiON ANd OvErviEW requires strategies to deal with high uncertainty, poten- tially high future damages, and competing needs for investments in social and economic development. The In partnership with the governments of the Netherlands study is further intended to inform the international and the UK, the World Bank instituted a global study community's efforts, including UNFCCC and the Bali on the economics of adaptation to climate change with Action Plan, to provide access to adequate, predictable, the objective of assisting decision makers in developing and sustainable support, and to provide new and addi- countries to integrate adaptation measures in national tional resources to help the most vulnerable developing development strategies, policies, and budgets. Current countries meet adaptation costs. estimates of the cost of climate change in developing countries and of the needed adaptation measures are in This report presents important findings on Ghana's very short supply, and the ones available are rather crude vulnerability to climate change and various adaptation and/or simplistic. This is largely because the economics options for mainstreaming into sectoral and spatial of adaptation to climate change is a new research area planning. It provides the needed inputs for planning a and no agreed methodology to assess overall costs has sustainable future. yet emerged. An understanding of the full array of adaptation options, including institutional and policy S T Ud y r ATi O N A L E A N d A p p rO A C h changes, is crucial to prioritize the most effective adap- tation strategies. This understanding must include the This study aims to provide a methodology for identify- costs and benefits of the options as well as an analysis of ing some robust adaptation strategies and options at the how to foster private sector and community-level local level; to provide a basis for understanding how to engagement on adaptation. Better estimates of the over- structure adaptation interventions so as to benefit the all budgetary implications of implementing "climate most vulnerable households and communities within resilient development" are needed to both enable devel- vulnerable regions; to assess the impact of socioeco- oping countries to develop and implement national nomic status, gender, and dimensions of poverty in strategies and plans, as well as to inform discussions shaping a range of types of vulnerability of different concerning possible international assistance. social groups to climate change; and to inform perceived cost-benefit estimates for alternative adaptation The overall objective of the study is to help decision responses in different agroecological zones. makers in developing countries to better understand and assess the risks posed by climate change and to This approach focuses on the following: better design strategies to adapt to climate change and variability. This requires costing, prioritizing, sequenc- · The local level, because most adaptation is ultimately ing, and integrating robust adaptation strategies into local their development plans and budgets. Furthermore, this · Vulnerable and disadvantaged socioeconomic groups 2 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A · Engaging vulnerable groups in collaborative analysis Understanding the assets that people use in construct- · Building on existing adaptive responses ing their livelihoods and the type of strategies employed · Soft as well as hard adaptation options by socially disaggregated groups is crucial in mapping · Ground-truthing analysis provided by the sectoral analyses their adaptive capacities. Vulnerability to climate · Triangulation of different data sources. hazards differs by social systems, with differential rules of access to assets for attaining sustainable livelihoods, CONCE p TUAL FrAmEWO rK and also defines the adaptation options opened to different people in different sectors and places. The Climate change is a major threat to livelihoods and study assesses the assets and livelihood systems of therefore the developmental aspirations of nations. people in different activities and different agroecological Understanding the impacts of the current and future areas to measure their level of sensitivity and resilience. threats that climate change presents is crucial for plan- For each of the agroecological regions, livelihood ning to mitigate and adapt to the desirable and undesir- profiles describe coping and adapting strategies and the able consequences. The impacts of current climate aspirations of different groups, especially women and change events are best understood by those most the most vulnerable. The report attempts to explain the affected, hence the need for a participatory analysis with social processes and relations that underpin social both spatial and sector-specific constituents. In each change and hence the status of livelihoods. Existing sector or spatial unit, people and their activities have strategies in mitigating the effects of weather variability specific characteristics that influence their ability to are important in current adaptation options and costing. avoid negative consequences, termed internal vulnerabil- Understanding the relationship between assets and the ity. The degree and type of adaptation of a person (or a livelihood strategies used by different people--and how system) to climate change is determined by his/her the institutional environment conditions success in vulnerability. Adaptations differ and offer solutions to coping and adaptation--is relevant for planning. The different types of impacts. At the household level, short- importance of assets to sustainable livelihoods is well- term measures are often referred to as coping strategies, documented (Chambers 1988; Chambers and Conway while medium- and long-term are adaptation strategies 1992; Davies 1996; Scoones 1998; Brock 1999; Ellis because the coping mechanisms have been perfected and 2000; Farrington 2001a). The rules of access and degree are more planned. It is preferable to have ex ante strate- of sustainability of livelihoods impinges on social gies rather than ex post that respond to unanticipated processes defined by governance, nature, economics, and events. We need to plan now based on known impacts of politics (Baumann 2000; Farrington 2001b; Bryceson climate change in each sector and for major livelihood 2002; McCusker and Carr 2006b; Carr 2008). Direct systems so as to eliminate the element of surprise that effects of climate change are predicated on complex can distort household and government budgets and frus- biophysical systems whose properties are reasonably trate development efforts. Three components are distin- well-understood and operate in the same manner wher- guishable in this framework; (1) climate change impacts; ever they are found. Indirect effects, however, translate (2) vulnerability of people and activities; and (3) adapta- direct effects through the lens of local livelihoods-- tion strategies to avoid upsetting the country's planned which are really about local social relations--into development trajectory. This report is intended to deter- observable activities and outcomes. These livelihoods mine from existing and anticipated strategies the most and social relations are not universal in their workings, cost-effective and sustainable adaptation options that and therefore are highly variable in their outcomes. Ghana can pursue at both the sectoral and spatial levels. vulnerability and Climate Change K E y ArEAS OF iNqU iry Vulnerability to climate change is the degree to which Asset and Livelihood Systems systems are susceptible to and unable to cope with adverse impacts (IPCC 2001; Adger et al. 2007). Impacts of climate change and adaptive strategies are Therefore vulnerability in this study relates to the lack of directly related to the livelihood systems of any society. capacity to adapt and to respond to stress as a result of d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 3 climate variability or change, with a consequent decline hosted a conference on climate change in August 2008 in well-being (Chambers 1989; Watts and Bohle 1993; that demonstrates its recognition of the seriousness of Blaikie et al. 1994; Cutter 1996; Adger 1999; Dilley and climate change on its natural resources, economy, and Boudreau 2001). Two sides of vulnerability are worth people. Ghana ratified the United Nations Framework noting: the first is the extent to which an individual, Convention on Climate Change in 1995. The Kyoto area, or activity is susceptible to unfavorable weather protocol was adopted by Parliament in 2002. An Initial changes, and the second is the adaptive capacity of the National Communication (INC) was produced in local population. The individual access to different assets December 2000 and a second one in 2008. Among and resources provides a fair assessment of internal other things, these communications covered greenhouse vulnerability, while the wider physical, social, and gas emissions from 1990­96; carbon dioxide, methane, economic factors define external vulnerability. Assets are and nitrous oxide; vulnerability and adaptation assess- resources enabled by social processes rather than mere ment for water resources, coastal zones, and agriculture financial capital. They are a reflection of the outcomes of (cereal production); and climate change mitigation social relations. Ghana is vulnerable to climate change options in the energy and forestry sectors (EPA 2000d; since a majority of its population is asset poor and relies Ministry of Environment and Science 2005; Energy heavily on natural-resource-based activities. Inequality in Commission 2006). access to resources is differentiated by gender, age, status, tribe, politics, and policies (Bening 1975; Songsore 1992; In line with Ghana's efforts at combating the adverse Adjei 1999; Canagarajah, Newman et al. 2001; effects of climate change, various climate change units Cassiman 2001; Abdulai 2002; Amanor 2002; Hutchful have been set up by the government in various minis- 2002; Awanyo 2003; Boni 2005; Yaro 2006). tries and departments to study, advise, and implement strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The Power structures in society grant unequal access to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the resources, while the macroeconomic landscape imposes umbrella organization guiding the climate change constraints on a large majority of people in coping and process. Most policy documents originate from the adapting to externalities. Identification of geographic EPA; each ministry's climate change unit handles their "hotspots" or regions particularly vulnerable to the respective department's concerns. In addition, the 1994 impacts of climate change will inform the construction Forest and Wildlife Policy, the Forestry Development of a set of vulnerability/livelihood profiles. The results Master Plan, and current policy reforms are aimed at of this analysis will inform the construction of vulnera- reversing the loss of environmental resources (Bamfo bility/livelihood profiles that will help identify common 2008). features in the way different social groups in rural or urban settings are expected to respond to climate vari- EPA is currently working on a national adaptation ability and change. Livelihood groups will reflect differ- strategy to be presented in Copenhagen. These study ent types of vulnerability to trends, shocks, and results will contribute to consultation processes with seasonality as they are disaggregated by gender, age, sectors and districts, which will be useful with regard to ethnicity, and occupation. The nature of vulnerability in costing adaptation options and influencing the budget- these zones will help shape priorities and adaptation ary allocations of the Ministry of Finance and activities. The result is a typology of social and liveli- Economic Planning. hood groups vulnerable to climate impacts and liveli- hood/vulnerability profiles for the zones, with examples people in places: Socio-Spatial Approaches to of adaptive responses. Adaptation policy and institutional Framework for Climate A "people in places" paradigm allows the experiences of resilience people in differentiated environments to influence the analysis of social phenomena (Forsyth and Leach 1998). Ghana is actively involved in the discussion of climate The human-nature relationship is mediated by institu- change and how to mitigate and adapt to it. Ghana tions, which are fueled by the forces of globalization, 4 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A global environmental change, and national, regional, and networks and relationships that enable access to those local socioeconomic conditions (Blaikie 1985; Abdulai forms of capital (McCusker and Carr 2006). and Delgado 1995; Angelsen 1997; Holden 1997). Environmental entitlements refer to the alternative sets Understanding the relationship between humans and of utilities derived from environmental goods and their environment first requires holistically assessing the services over which social actors have legitimate effec- livelihoods of peasants in specific biophysical contexts, tive command and which are instrumental in achieving recognizing the fact that they wish to continue making well-being (Leach et al. 1997). Entitlements are a result a livelihood from natural resources. It is important to of negotiations via formal and informal institutions understand the opportunities and constraints to sustain- embedded in different interest regimes. able livelihoods. Access to environmental resources is important in achieving entitlements, which in turn has Understanding the social and spatial dimensions of repercussions for sustainable livelihoods, poverty reduc- vulnerability is key to understanding the nature and tion, environmental quality, and eventually adaptation. magnitude of impacts and the corresponding adapta- Livelihoods are not only the circulation of various tions enabled by the constraints of the political, social, resources, commonly labeled as forms of "capital," but physical and economic milieu. The proposed adapta- also the means by which social roles are constituted and tions are therefore not mere idealizations, but are geared power circulated. The literature, in its concern for access toward a realistic vision informed by the current and to livelihood assets, cannot address the use of natural or projected trends, impacts, and capabilities. physical capital without a discussion of the social 5 2. SOCiAL dimENSiONS OF CLimATE climate change. Ghana is unable to cope with current climate variability and will struggle with projected ChANGE iN GhANA changes due to poor institutional structures, poor indi- vidual capabilities, and the slow growth of its economy, Though climate change is a physical process involving which is associated with insufficient financial resources changes in climatic variables, it is influenced by social needed for adaptation and mitigation. processes that relate to the way society evolves through time. Climate change will impact on social, economic, E Xp E C T Ed p h yS iC A L i m pA C T S O F and environmental systems and shape prospects for C Li m AT E C hA N G E i N G h A N A food, water, and health security (Adger 1999; Steffen et al 2004; Christensen et al. 2007). The capacity to miti- According to Ghana's first Initial National gate and to adapt to climate change impacts depends on Communication (INC) to the United Nations proactive measures adopted by different socioeconomic Framework Convention on Climate Change groups living in differentiated geographical circum- (UNFCCC) in December 2000, three major physical stances. The physical, socioeconomic, and technological impacts of climate change are distinguishable: characteristics of different societies and social groups (1) temperature changes, (2) rainfall changes, and (3) sea will influence the impacts of climate change, as well as level changes. Climate change will lead to changes in their capability to adapt to and mitigate climate change. geophysical, biological, and socioeconomic systems. An impact describes a specific change in a system caused by Climate change increases the vulnerability of the poor in its exposure to climate change. Impacts may be judged the areas of water supply, exposure to disease, increasing to be harmful or beneficial (Schneider et al. 2007). sensitivity of livelihood activities, and undermining of growth opportunities. The effects of climate change in According to the INC, Ghana has experienced about a Ghana will vary geographically. The north, transitional, 1oC rise in temperatures over the past three decades and coastal zones are projected to be the most affected (EPA 2000d). Two different scenarios were used to through droughts, shortened farming seasons, and sea model future temperature increases. Based on these erosion. The spin-off effects on the rest of the economy models, it is expected that mean daily temperatures can lead to devastating consequences. Droughts and floods will increase by 2.5°C to 3.2°C by 2100. In addition, in have characterized Ghana's recent past, causing losses of the last 30 years rainfall has decreased by 20 percent life and property, a reduction in economic growth, and a and runoff by 30 percent. It is projected that annual crisis in power generation from the hydroelectric dam. rainfall totals will decrease by 9­27 percent by the year 2100, with the range representing spatial variations. The social dimension, which impacts physical and Tables 1 and 2 present the latest scenarios by Minia economic dimensions, mainly propels vulnerability to (2004). 6 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Over the last 30 years, sea level rise has occurred at a basin, as well as the July/August short dry spell. The rate of 2.1 mm per year. Using an assumed global sea short dry spell has become wetter in the second period, level rise of 1 m by 2100, a large part of the east coast while the wet September/October months are becoming of Ghana would be inundated, accompanied by coastal drier. This results in diminished rainfall toward the end erosion, intrusion of saltwater into surface and ground- of the rainy season, leading to a prolonged dry season water sources, and possible increased risk from with increased evaporation, which exacerbates the earthquakes. reduction in lake levels. Declining rainfall has been reported throughout West Yaro (2004) describes a pattern of rainfall for Navrongo Africa over the past 50 years and may be viewed in the between 1960 and 1997. Rainfall amounts for Navrongo long term as part of a general southward shift in the have gone through less variation in the 1960s, followed seasonal migration of the Inter-Tropical Convergence by higher variations in the 1980s and 1990s. The devia- Zone (ITCZ) (Weldeab et al. 2007). Owusu and tions from the monthly means are used as a yardstick Waylen's (Owusu and Waylen 2009) study of rainfall for explaining enabling and constraining conditions patterns in Ghana shows that mean annual rainfall imposed by rainfall variability. An average of 75 rainy totals within all four agroecological zones experienced a days well-distributed among the critical months of decline from the period between 1951 and 1970 (P1) to April to November is supposed to lead to a good the period between 1981 and 2000 (P2), except at Kete- harvest, ceteris paribus. There is a correlation between Krachi. The reductions at six of the fifteen stations were annual rainfall and the number of rainy days. The years significant at the 0.01 level and an additional four at the with lower rainfall totals also registered a lower than 0.05 level. Stations experiencing significant declines are average number of rainy days. In the 36-year period located toward the southwestern forest, the coastal from 1961 to 1997, 18 years registered lower than zones, and the savannah. During the 1951­70 period, expected rainy days. In the 1960s the spacing was wide annual rainfall totals in the forest zone dropped from enough, but consistently decreased in the 1970s until it around 1,800 mm to about 1,600 mm, the coastal and reached a crisis in the early 1980s, when the area expe- northern savannah saw a reduction from around 1,200 rienced the worst shortage of water for plant growth, mm to about 1,000 mm, while the transition zone also with 1983 registering the highest deficit of ­16 rainy experienced reductions from 1,400 mm to 1,200 mm. days. Since 1985, a year of favorable conditions is In general the reductions in the transitional and savan- usually followed by one of bad conditions, as seen nah zones, which occupy the northern half of Ghana, between 1988 and 1997. However, some years have are minimal compared to the forest and coastal zones. shown a discordant distribution pattern, whereby most Such changes are likely to have significant impacts for rainy days are concentrated in the peak of the rainy rainfed agriculture areas in Ghana. They conclude that season in July rather than April and May, when a short- such large-scale rainfall deficits have the potential to age of moisture can nullify the investments of farmers. destroy plant cover, reduce evapotranspiration, increase Total rainy days were adequate in 1964, 1966, 1970, surface albedo, and affect other aspects of water and 1976, 1977, 1989, and 1994, but yet registered negative energy balance, which can set in motion a long period values for the early months of the rainy season when of below-normal rainfall. crops really needed moisture. There is an apparent shift in the rainfall regime in The general circulation model (GCM) used by Bonsu Ghana toward a longer dry season and vanishing short et al. (1998) and Minia (2004) predicted increases in dry spell; the effects tend to negate each other (Owusu maximum (Table 2) and minimum temperatures and et al. 2008). The reduction in annual rainfall has been solar radiation but predicted decreases in rainfall gener- associated with a shift in the rainfall regime, especially ally. There are huge uncertainties in the future pathways in the southern portions of the Volta basin. The months of this climate, as reflected in the IPCC's AR-4 most affected are September and October, coincident (Christensen et al. 2007). The drivers of climate change with the peak of the minor rainy season of the humid in West Africa are not well-understood, as opposed to south and peak rainfall in the unimodal north of the southern Africa, where they are better understood. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 7 Table 1 shows a general predicted decline in rainfall for most serious challenge in all regions except the rainfor- all the zones. The negative figures show anticipated est, with impacts on all sectors of the economy. Rainfall reductions in rainfall with the coastal savannah being variability refers to the differences in rainfall from place hardest hit by drought conditions since it already expe- to place, the differences in rainfall between years, and riences low rainfall totals annually. Reductions for the the differences in rainfall distribution within the same northern savannahs are not severe but significant year. Environmental change emerging through the enough to eliminate the cultivation of high moisture- driver of climate change could inflict harsh and extreme loving crops. Table 2 shows the anticipated rises in environmental conditions upon rural smallholder farm- temperature with incremental tendencies up to a maxi- ers, and therefore has direct implications for creating mum of over 5°C by 2080. These temperature increases unsustainable livelihoods and/or reducing the livelihood will trigger changes in other weather variables and options of poor farm households, especially within the impact on agriculture and water systems. agricultural and livestock sectors (EPA 2000b; Brown and Crawford 2008). The impacts of these trends on the economy and people are better understood by examining their impacts on the The coastal savannah is the most vulnerable to sea different sociogeographic regions. Traditionally, Ghana erosion and inundations. Flooding has also been severe has been divided into six agroecological zones: (1) the along the sprawling urban cities and towns of coastal Guinea savannah, (2) Sudan savannah, (3) the forest- Ghana, due mainly to the increasing frequency of storm savannah mosaic or transition, (4) the semi-decidous activities and poor urban planning. Rising sea levels will forest, (5) the rainforest, and (6) the coastal savannah impact the coastal zone through shoreline recession, (Figure 1). increased flood frequency, inundation of coastal lands and wetlands, and the salinization of surface and This study merges the Guinea savannah and the Sudan groundwater (EPA 2000a). According to the EPA, savannah into one zone, the savannah zone. Also, we climate change is expected to affect sandy beaches in merge the semi-deciduous forest and the rainforest into two ways: (1) the rise in sea level expected from climate one zone, the forest zone. Rainfall variability poses the change will accelerate the rate of recession on sandy TABLE 1. SCENAriOS OF mEAN ANNUAL ChANGE iN rAiNFALL FOr ECOLOGiCAL ZONES (%) Year Sudan Savanna Guinea Savanna Transitional Deciduous rainforest Rainforest Coastal Savanna 2020 ­1.1 ­1.9 ­2.2 ­2.8 ­3.1 ­3.1 2050 ­6.7 ­7.8 ­8.8 ­10.9 ­12.1 ­12.3 2080 ­12.8 ­12.8 ­14.6 ­18.6 ­20.2 ­20.5 Source: minia 2004 TABLE 2. SCENAriOS OF mEAN ANNUAL TEmpErATUrE ChANGE FOr ECOLOGiCAL ZONES Transitional Year Sudan Savanna Guinea Savanna Savanna Deciduous rainforest Rainforest Coastal Savanna 2020 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 2050 2.6 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2080 5.8 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 Source: minia 2004 8 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A outcomes, while flooded areas are also at risk for FiGUrE 1. GhANA'S AGrOECOLOGiCAL reduced sanitation and waterborne disease. Both ZONES OF GhANA drought and floods have impacts on the continental hydrological cycle, water resources, disease incidence, and food security. Potential water availability from precipitation declines as one moves from south to north. However, total amounts alone do not indicate the amount of available water; other important factors include the various storage mechanisms, such as rivers, lakes, and underground aquifers. Domestic water availability is already a big issue in major cities of Ghana, due mainly to technical inefficiencies in coping with increasing urbanization and physical availability of water. The major river basins include the Pra, Ayensu, Bia, Volta, and their tributaries. Scenarios developed by EPA (EPA 2000c) indicate that runoff in all representative basins are sensitive to changes in precipitation and temperature with a 10 percent change in precipitation. Reduction in rainfall is accompanied by poor timing of the available water, which tends to concentrate in fewer months rather than a benevolent spread across the year. Distributional problems constitute the biggest chal- lenge for agriculture in the future. In the health sector, climate change will increase the incidence of diseases carried in the water, air, and food, leading to deteriorating health conditions. Increased heat stress and drought-related deaths in both humans and livestock are already occurring in the extreme north of the country. These lead to increased budgetary prob- lems, with serious consequences for the National Health shores, which is expected to be about 8 meters per years Insurance Scheme. Changes are also expected in the (Ly 1980); and (2) through increases in littoral transport range of some infectious disease vectors. Flooding will capacity arising from increases in the intensity and increase the range of the mosquito and hence different duration of storms. A 1 meter increase in sea level will strains of malaria, while the incidence of parasitic infec- cause an estimated recession between 250 and 300 tions might increase. Malaria is already the number one meters, which translates to a land loss of 37 to 45 km2. killer in Ghana and is likely to continue, exacerbated by Indigenous fishing communities--through the loss of poor urban planning. In socioeconomic terms, these physical assets and livelihoods--will be affected the impacts mean losses in productive man-hours and stress most. Biodiversity in lagoons, marshes, and estuaries of on government budgets. the Volta delta is already at risk. S O Ci A L v U L N ErA B iLi T y iN G h A N A Climate change will affect water availability for domestic use, industrial applications, and hydroelectric Vulnerability to climate change is the degree to which generation. Water availability in turn has positive links groups of people and livelihood systems are suscepti- with disease prevalence in tropical countries; in that ble to, and unable to cope with, adverse impacts. The insufficient water for domestic uses can harm health concept of risk, which combines the magnitude of the d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 9 impact with the probability of its occurrence, captures policies have always favored plantation agriculture and uncertainty in the underlying processes of climate mining. Food crops and livestock have been relegated to change exposure, impacts, and adaptation (Schneider savannah zones, an ideal environment for production. et al. 2007). An important developmental question is There has subsequently been a paralysis of northern the following: Which social and economic groups in development (Bening 1975; Rothchild 1991; Rimmer Ghanaian society are/will be vulnerable to climate 1992; Songsore 1992; Songsore and Denkabe 1995; change, in what ways, and why these groups? Puplampu 1999; Songsore 2003), or underdevelopment. Complex combinations of socioeconomic, political, As defined by Plange (1979), underdevelopment is the environmental, cultural, and structural factors act and process by which a country's realistic possibilities for interact to affect vulnerability to climate change and economic growth are thwarted and distorted, usually by variability. African economies have recently registered contact with another and more highly "developed" a significant overall increase in economic activity, with economic system. Northern economic systems have Ghana being among the best performers in terms of been relegated and thwarted by capitalist interests in the growth (World Bank 2006; GSS 2007). Despite this south defined by globalization and enforced by struc- positive progress, several African economies remain tural adjustment policies. (See Figure 2 showing the vulnerable to regional conflicts, the vagaries of the regional distribution of poverty in Ghana.) weather and climate, volatile commodity prices, and the various influences of globalization (Devereux and Maxwell 2001). According to the various GLSS surveys, poverty levels have been falling in Ghana (GSS 1995; GSS 2000; FiGUrE 2. mAp ShOWiNG diSTriBUTiON OF GSS 2007). The number of the poor in Ghana was 28.5 pOvErTy By AGrOECOLOGiCAL ZONES percent in 2005/06, falling from 39.5 percent in 1998/99. Those described as extremely poor declined from 26.8 percent to 18.2 percent. The general decline in poverty can be attributed to the high growth rates in cocoa production benefiting from government interven- tion achieved due to the implementation of the GPRS I and II (Ghana poverty reduction strategy). The inci- dence of poverty varies by locality, sex, occupation, and ecological zone. Generally, the bulk of Ghana's poor live in rural areas in regions with a high dependence on agriculture. The northern savannah regions are the poorest in Ghana compared to the transitional and forest regions. Climate seems to have a relationship with poverty levels, with the exception of the largely non-agrarian economy of the coastal savannah. Their dependence on rainfall exposes farmers to the variability of climate in the absence of interventions and conducive policy. According to Nelson and Agbey (2007), ecological zones with high rainfall and low temperatures had a lower poverty level than those with low rainfall and high temperatures. This correlation has little explanatory value without considering the sociopo- litical and historical factors accounting for plantations, mining, and urban growth. Colonial and post-colonial 10 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Poverty is a reflection of the distribution of power, city of Accra, which is a major destination for many social relations, and government policy. Since coping poor migrants seeking refuge from excruciating condi- and adaptation are key to reducing vulnerability to tions in rural areas (GSS 2007). The political economy climate change and variability, which in turn depend on of Ghana--characterized by pro-urban and pro-export the capabilities of people, the poorest people have the policies--creates "hotpots" in non-urban and non- higher sensitivity and lower resilience in the face of export zones, with consequent migration of the vulnera- climate impacts. Dependence on the physical environ- ble to urban areas to create new urban hotpots. ment for their livelihood exposes the bulk of the Ghanaian population--agriculture accounts for about N ATi O N A L p L A N NiN G F O r CLi m AT E 60 percent of the labor force--to climate hazards. C hA N G E Agricultural capital--in the form of irrigation, silos, erosion control, and other necessary infrastructure--is Under the aegis of EPA and the National Development poorly developed, especially in food-crop areas. Planning Commission (NDPC), the government has put together a draft National Adaptation Strategy. The political economy of agrarian development in According to EPA (2009): Ghana explains the disparities in development nation- wide. Progress in the forest sector is mainly due to the "The goal of the National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) prominence given cocoa production in the country's is to future-proof developments and to build in resil- macroeconomic policies. Food-crop producers have not ience to climate change impacts now and in the future been given as much attention by policy makers, there- in order to reinforce and increase the capacity of fore resulting in poorer performance in the savannah Ghanaian society and ecosystems to adapt to climate and the transitional zones. Coastal fisherfolk, especially change. Ultimately the NAS is to position Ghana to those who depend more on fishing livelihoods and to a reduce the risks of climate change impacts and realize small extent on farming, are exposed to the double any opportunities that climate change provides for effect of sea level rise and a dwindling fish catch. Their sustainable development." condition is getting precarious as fish stocks dwindle, farmlands are converted to peri-urban developments, The short- to medium-term (2­7 years) plan is to build and poor skills prevent any meaningful integration into Ghana's capacity to deal with climate change impacts the modern urban economy (Palmer 2007). Increasing and reduce vulnerability in key sectors, ecosystems, prices of both food and non-food commodities, the districts, and regions of the country. The following increasing cost of living, and unemployment or under- objectives are set to achieve the goal of the NAS: employment are also contributing to declines in income, which affects the ability of the poor to save, · Improve societal awareness and preparedness for accumulate working capital, and pay for services, food, future climate change and the basic essentials of life (Hutchful 2002; Yaro · Enhance the mainstreaming of climate change into 2002; UNDP 2007). national development to reduce climate change risks · Increase the robustness of infrastructure develop- Many more women are poorer than men in all regions, ment and long-term investments which is a reflection of traditional patriarchal norms · Enhance the adaptability of vulnerable ecological translated into current access patterns to resources and and social systems by increasing the flexibility and privileges enjoyed by the different sexes. Traditional resilience of these systems inheritance systems give precedence to men over · Avoid maladaptation by reversing the trends that women (Levin et al. 1999; Quisumbing et al. 2001; increase vulnerability Awumbila and Ardayfio-Schandorf 2008). · Foster competitiveness and promote technological innovation. Though urban areas have a lower incidence of poverty than their rural counterparts, serious pockets of poverty Several piecemeal adaptations have previously been exist in urban areas. Poverty has worsened in the capital suggested in the different sectors of the economy. The d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 11 energy and forestry sectors have been more active in an opportunity to mainstream climate change chal- mainstreaming climate concerns into their agenda. The lenges into sectoral and district plans. However, the current coping mechanisms used by the state, civil soci- institutional framework for collaborative planning for ety, and individuals are short term and most often do adaptation is still weak and needs strengthening with not allow meaningful adaptation. The NAS will present enough resources to transform visions into reality. 12 3. rESEArCh mEThOdOLOGy c. Validation of livelihood profiles at field level through community/civil society focus group discussions and other participatory methods. rESEArC h STrATEG y AN d qUEST iO N S d. Semi-structured interviews, 12 per community site, sampled from different well-being tiers. This study's methodology draws upon a range of analyt- ical frameworks, including the sustainable livelihoods The study seeks to answer the following questions: framework, assets and capabilities frameworks, institu- tional risk pooling approaches, social risk management · What are some robust adaptation strategies and framework, and environmental entitlements analysis. It options at the local level? is intended to bridge the gap between community needs · How can adaptation interventions be structured so and priorities at the micro level and policy processes at as to benefit the most vulnerable households and the macro level. By identifying and assessing the most communities within vulnerable regions? urgent adaptation needs of the most vulnerable as well · What are the impacts of socioeconomic status, gen- as their local coping and adaptive strategies, the der, and poverty in shaping a range of types of vul- proposed inter-sectoral, bottom-up approach will nerability of different social groups to climate provide recommendations for setting priorities for change? action and help develop a robust, integrated approach · How can we determine perceived cost-benefit esti- for increasing resilience to climate risks at the national mates for alternative adaptation responses in differ- and local level. ent agroecological zones? The research process is divided into phases, including: S i T E S E L E C Ti O N A Nd SA m pL iN G · Data review and identification of hotspots and vul- The districts from which the sites for the field valida- nerability/livelihood profiles based on key tion were selected were based on a literature review as vulnerabilities. well as the preliminary criteria suggested in the terms · Identification of alternative, robust adaptation path- of reference, which informed the selection of the major ways using participatory methods to elicit plausible hotspots in the country. The sites should be regarded scenarios. The components include: as cases that seek to explain the differential vulnerabili- a. Review of existing qualitative and quantitative ties and adaptation options. They are not representa- secondary data on poverty, vulnerability, and tive of entire ecological zones as these zones have climate hazards and validation at field level. micro-ecological, economic, cultural, and political b. Review of policy and institutional environment differences. The selected research sites are presented in for local adaptation. Table 3. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 13 TABLE 3. SELECTiON OF rESEArCh SiTES Selected Sites Features/ Rationale Vulnerability To Climate Existing Initiatives coastal savannah Zone (1) shows livelihood profiles of dry climate with increasing civic Responses, e.g. Radio Ada in · site 1: Ada-Anyakpor, in fisherfolk rainfall variability and hotter Dangme East district, coastal zone the dangbe-East (Ada) temperatures disrtict Exemplifies the struggles of a coastal community prone to sea erosion and tidal flooding · site 2: Nima in the Accra (2) harbors most of the urban prone to flooding this site is one of the communities metropolitan Assembly poor in Accra included in 1995 participatory (AmA) increased risk of disease poverty Assessment shows relationship between infections Both sites in the greater poor urban planning and risk of Accra Region disasters poverty and disaster response systems poor shelter provision and drainage systems forest Zone (3) major cocoa growing area; decreasing rainfall will affect the two sites are among the · site 3: gonukrom in new frontier for agricultural cocoa production communities of the iUcn's Wassa Amenfi West migrants livelihoods and landscapes (Asankragwa) district high humidity and high initiative (REdd) issues of land tenure, temperatures will be harmful economic policy, and migration to agriculture World Bank's forest carbon · site 4: Kamaso in Wassa brought to bear partnership facility (fcpf) Amenfi West (Asankragwa) logging and mining will district reduce carbon sinks Both in Western Region Economic policy to lead to reduction in forests transitional Zone major food crop zone Variations in rainfall and techiman district is where the · site 5: buoyem in temperature to affect Environmental protection Agency techiman district migrant receiving region production (EpA) and the national development planning council increasing environmental migration increases land supported by Undp are piloting problems pressure district-level planning for climate change adaptation Urban growth and alternative poverty reduces adaptation livelihoods inland fishing community Effects of climate on lake no existing initiative · site 6: Dzatakpo in pru Volta district shows livelihoods of fishermen and fish mongers decreasing fish stocks and Both in the Brong Ahafo adaptation by fishing Region multiple livelihoods communities human capital and adaptable livelihoods northern savannah fragile environment highly variable weather and the two sites are among the · site 7: boayini (guinea agriculture communities in which cARE-ghana savannah) in East high poverty incidence is supporting local-level adaptation mamprusi district in Environmental bankruptcy to climate variability and change in northern Region Agrarian economy northern ghana Resilience of households female outmigration to cities · site 8: Tetauku (sudan dry environment highly variable weather and the Bawku district was included in savannah) in Bawku East agriculture 1995 participatory poverty district in the Upper East highest poverty incidence in Assessment Region ghana Environmental bankruptcy Agrarian economy sensitivity of households high out-migration 14 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Background to Sites has a unimodal rainfall distribution, and an annual average rainfall of 1,000 mm. Mean monthly tempera- 1. Forest Zone: Gonukrom and Kamaso ture varies from 36°C in March to 27°C in August. The The rainfall distribution pattern in the forest is bimodal northern savannah can be divided into the Guinea from April to July and September to November. There is savannah and the Sudan savannah. The Guinea savan- a main dry season from November to February­March. nah occupies most of the northern region and has The annual rainfall records above 1,900 mm and is better ecological conditions for farming than the distributed throughout the year with a mean monthly Sudan savannah, which is found in the two upper rainfall of 250 mm. The region receives its maximum regions. monthly temperature of about 30°C between March and April and the lowest temperature of about 26°C in Boayini is located in the East Mamprusi District in the August. Humidity is normally higher during the rainy northern region. The community has a total population season (75­80 percent) and lower in the rest of the year of 1,400. The tribes in the community include (70­80 percent) (Dickson and Benneh 1970). Tampulensi, Mamprusis, Bimobas, Mosis, and Fulanis. Tetauku is also located in Bawku East District in the Gonukrom largely consists of people who belong to the upper east region. It has a total population of 898, Wassa ethnic group, while Kamaso is purely a migrant/ including 394 males and 504 females. The community settler community composed of migrants from different is dominated by the Mamprusi tribe. The savannah parts of the country. Both communities have a signifi- zone is the leading producer of several cereal grains cant population of migrants. In terms of poverty, there (including maize, rice, sorghum, and millet), along with have been good achievements made in the forest region, yams, cowpeas, and tobacco. In addition, the area domi- mainly due to the prominence given to cocoa produc- nates the rest of the country in the production of live- tion by the country's macroeconomic policies. stock (Karbo and Agyare 2002). 2. Transition Zone: Buoyem and Dzatakpo 4. Coastal Savannah Zone: Anyakpor and Nima The transition zone is a major food crop zone and a The coastal savannah zone occupies the entire east migrant receiving region. The transition zone experi- coast from the central region through the Greater ences rainfall values between 1,000 and 1,500 mm, Accra region to the Volta region. It has the highest adequate to support luxuriant vegetation (Gyasi et al. concentration of population in Ghana, with the Accra 1995). Its maximum monthly temperature is about 30°C Metropolitan Area having a population density of between March and April, and its lowest temperature is 3,388 persons per km2 (EPA 2000a). It has a dry about 26°C in August. Humidity is normally higher equatorial climate with mean annual rainfall between (75­80 percent) during the rainy season. The major 740 mm and 890 mm. This belt receives the least livelihood activity in Buoyem is food crop farming, amount of rain in Ghana and hence is the driest including maize, tiger nuts, and tomatoes. In Dzatakpo, region in the country. The main activities of people in fishing is the major livelihood activity due to its loca- this zone are fishing and farming in the rural areas, tion on the Pru River. Dzatakpo is largely dominated by while the urban centers have a complex economy of Ewe migrants from Marfi and Anlo in the Volta region global orientation. and has an estimated population of 1,000 people. Buoyem is an Akan community with an estimated Anyakpor community is located on the outskirts of population of over 5,000 people. Buoyem is better Ada-Foah. The major ethnic group in this community endowed in terms of its forest, river, and land resources, is called Dangme. It is a typical coastal village with a which attracts migrants from across the country, espe- population of about 800 people. The main livelihood cially the three northern regions. activities include fishing, food crop farming, and fish mongering. Nima is an urban slum composed of mostly 3. Northern Savannah Zone: Boayini and Tetauku migrants. It typifies the livelihoods of vulnerable urban The northern savannah zone is predominantly a grass- migrants to socioeconomic and climate change land agroecosystem with scattered shrubs and trees. It challenges. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 15 mET h Od S : TOOLS EmpLO yEd regional, and/or livelihood groups within the country, evaluating both existing and alternative adaptation The study usef mainly qualitative methods, supple- options in order to prioritize investments in the short, mented with a quantitative survey. Data were collected medium, and long-term. In the national workshop, from two main sources. Existing quantitative and quali- participants were grouped according to the four socio- tative data were collected from secondary sources to geographic zones (northern savannah, transition, forest, identify sociogeographic zones (hotspots), review the and coastal savannah). In the regional/zone workshops, policy and institutional environment for local adapta- participants were grouped according to sectors and live- tion, and draft livelihood profiles. lihood groups. Results from district workshops were summarized during the national workshop to enable a Primary data collection used a combination of tools broad-based informed analysis of issues for the nation. under the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) meth- odology to validate livelihood profiles at the field level A p p rO A Ch TO d ATA A N A Ly S iS and engage participants on climate change impacts and the corresponding coping and adaptation strategies that Combinations of qualitative and quantitative analytical various groups used in sustaining their livelihoods. This methods were applied in data analysis. Qualitative anal- methodology draws upon a range of data collection ysis involved pattern and consensus building from the tools and techniques, including community/civil society participatory workshops in both the communities and at focus group discussions, ranking/scoring, seasonal the regional level. Qualitative data analysis in a partici- diagramming, timelines, well-being categorization, as patory research paradigm appreciates the analytical abil- well as semi-structured interviews and key informant ities of the participants with interpretations by interviews with households, to gather information researchers to fit the categories and research questions. regarding climate hazards, impacts, and adaptation prac- Hence, we try as much as possible to present the voices tices. About three to four focus group discussions were of the people from both the local level and the expert organized in each community differentiated by gender, level. The quantitative analytical tools have been limited age, and ethnicity, in order to identify and assess the to descriptive statistics as the sample size is too low for most urgent adaptation needs of the most vulnerable as complex statistical analysis. Also, the purpose of the well as their local coping and adaptive strategies study is met with minimal quantitative inputs. The inte- (Appendices 5 and 6). Additionally, a limited number of gration of qualitative and quantitative data provides household questionnaires (Appendix 1), 10 per study complementarities and confirmations that increase the site, were sampled from different well-being tiers during validity of the findings. The data has been disaggregated the wealth ranking exercises in eight communities of along three main lines to reflect the voices of the people the four delineated agroecological zones in Ghana by agroecological zones, gender, and vulnerable groups. (Appendix 4). We collected household-level data on The analysis by zones shows the nexus of socioeco- assets, sources of livelihood, income and exchange, capi- nomic vulnerability/ poverty as well as climate hazards. tal investments, credit, education, illness, access to The analysis along gender, age, minority groups, and common property resources, and other variables related type of livelihood activity shows the typology of liveli- to household livelihoods. hood profiles in order to characterize the main types of climate-related vulnerability and their manifestations There were also five participatory forums-- within the livelihoods of vulnerable groups. "Participatory Scenario Development (PSD) work- shops"--of which two were conducted at the national i N T Er A C Ti O N S W iT h O Th E r E A C C level and three at the zonal level. PSD provides an SE C TOr ST Ud y TE A m S A Nd BA N K S TA F F opportunity for a range of stakeholders--including government officials, local experts, and representatives-- For a number of reasons, there was limited collaboration to explore the future in a rigorous, creative, and policy- between the PDA, as the lead on the social component, relevant way. In these workshops, participants developed and the Ghana EACC study sector specialists with desired, yet realistic, adaptation pathways for national, regard to joint analyses so as to ensure full integration 16 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A of the social and sectoral analyses. First and foremost, time. This had cost implications since new facilitators/ the Ghana EACC sector specialists' team did not resource persons had to be recruited and trained. The provide inputs into the selection of communities for timing of interviews was not good for the rural sites, investigations. While the inception report for the social since the months of May­June are the peak farming component, the field findings and findings from the season. The field teams therefore had to spend longer PSD workshops were ready, the other EACC sector hours waiting for the community members to return study teams were deliberating on methodology issues; from their farms for the interviews. hence there was not enough synchronization between the social and sector methodologies, implying that find- Another challenge had to do with limited funds. Due to ings from the field work and the PSD workshops might limited financing, the training and preparation of field not integrate well with the other sectoral analyses as staff, which was supposed to take about five to six days, was intended. But the different perspectives could be was reduced to three days. This affected the quality and useful in terms of complementarity. homogeneity of the research process and data generated. The number of study sites visited was reduced to two in Limi TAT i ONS OF STUdy each agroecological zone instead of three per zone. The PSD workshops were conducted in only three out of the There was a delay in executing the field work according four zones. Luckily, Care Ghana assisted in funding the to schedule, which affected the mobilization of people PSD workshop held in Tamale for the northern savan- and logistics. Persons who were originally asked to nah Zone. participate in the field baseline study, and who had PRA experience, were not available since they were Despite the above limitations, the study succeeded in engaged with other commitments due to the change in eliciting most of the needed data for the required tasks. 17 4. FiELdWOrK rESULTS are outcomes of social processes and relations emergent from contextual local cultures. Different combinations of assets suited to the demands of various zones are Ov E rvi EW ANd iNTrOdUCT iON TO A rE A S distinguishable. But commonalities run through all OF iN v EST iGAT iON zones. Land is the most important household resource in all the zones as the main livelihood activities--such The overall objective of this study was to capture as farming, harvesting timber, wild fruits, and non- people's knowledge and experience in coping with timber forest products--are dependent on it. The distri- climate variability and environmental degradation by bution of land among households is not uniform, identifying appropriate strategies for adaptation to reflecting differential access granted by institutions. adverse impacts of climate change. Information Access to land is easier in the Guinea savannah zone, presented in this section is therefore purely perceptional with lower population density and non-commercialized in nature, reporting on communities' and individuals' systems. The forest and the transition zones have perceptions, with a few comparisons with instrument commercialized transactions in land involving share- records. Communities and individuals are reporting on cropping and rental arrangements. how they view their circumstances and situations. Communities have important water resources--such as Specifically the study sought to: rivers, wells, boreholes, and lakes--that are used for both agricultural and domestic purposes. These are · Identify robust adaptation strategies and options at community resource pools, but individualized ownership the local level. of wells is common among wealthy families. The · Provide a basis for understanding how to structure communities in the transitional and forest belts are adaptation interventions so as to benefit the most endowed with forest resources, including timber, bat vulnerable households and communities within vul- and monkey sanctuaries, and forest reserves. nerable regions. · Assess the impact of socioeconomic status, gender, Individual household assets considered during the and poverty in shaping a range of types of vulnera- survey include implements and equipment that support bility of different social groups to climate change. the economic activities of the people. Other assets hith- erto considered luxury items--such as the bicycle and household Asset Base cell phone--are now important in enhancing livelihoods and the well-being of the people. The survey results Household assets constitute an important dimension of show that about 30 percent of the respondents owned a internal vulnerability and define the adaptive capacity of bicycle, while as many as 60 percent owned a cell phone. household members and livelihood systems (Chambers In the fishing communities, every fisherman owned and Richards 1986; Chambers 1989). Household assets fishing nets, whereas about 60 percent owned a boat. 18 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A The possession of hoes, axes, and cutlasses is common · The "nhweso" is a system whereby a caretaker is for everyone in the farming communities. Some more engaged on the cocoa farm(s) and is responsible for expensive farm implements are rented by the poor, while the maintenance of the farm on behalf of the land- the rich seek labor services from the poor for a fee to owner for some income. help weed their farms. · The "abunu" (halves) is a system where a person cultivates cocoa for a landowner or farm owner and Wild resources on individual and common access lands is entitled to half of the farm's proceeds and land. constitute important assets for households and provide · The "ye mayenkye" system employs similar practices an outlet for coping during periods of stress. Within the as the "abunu," except proceeds and land are shared forest and transitional belts, the cola plant and canes are on agreed proportions with the farm/land owner. important sources of income, just as the dawadawa and · Migrant land owners pay levies to the akeykyedie shea trees are to the savannah zone. Several wild fruits stool and local government for the use of lands. and non-timber resources such as mushrooms, snails, and other wildlife resources are available to households, The men revealed that most of the farmers in the depending on the rules governing resources in their community own the land they farm. They inherited the communities. land from their forefathers. For the settler farmers, however, those who need land rent them from the Though these resources are uniformly available in these owners at 400 cedis per acre for three years, and must zones and communities, the mechanisms for accessing abide by the terms of the agreement. them lead to social exclusion of vulnerable groups. These social processes that mediate resource access are In the coastal belt, the youth claim that fisherfolk relevant in understanding how assets can act as buffers within the community have the sea available from to the challenges of climate change. which to fish and are under no obligation whatsoever to make any payments to anyone for the use of the sea. resource Access and Land Tenure They indicated that some fishermen inherited some fishing implements from their fathers and grandfathers. Access to resources and the form of land tenure These implements include nets, canoes, and outboard system vary from community to community. Within motors. Fishing is allowed throughout the week except the forest communities studied, the ability to sustain on Tuesdays. and or cater for household necessities is dependent on the size or number of cocoa farms that are owned or At Buoyem in the transitional zone, the chief, who is have access rights. Land for farming in the communi- assisted by a number of subchiefs, has the overall ties has become very scarce. This is because some land authority and controls all natural resources in the is being reserved to sustain forest culture. The community. At the family level, it is the family head communities agree that there are no lands for farming who steers affairs and controls all family resources. Land unless lands are offered for sale; otherwise, land is only is accessible to everybody, provided one does not have acquired on the basis of "ye ma yenkye" or "abunu" any questionable character. Land is not sold here; it can (this is a share cropping arrangement). Community only be leased out. The chief is the only one who has lands are controlled by the Akyekyerehene, who is the the right to sell the land. However, family members or custodian of the land. However, the community chief migrants who require a piece of land for farming can and elders could assist in acquiring private land(s) for access land through the family heads. farming by leading interested persons to the Akyekerehene, who in turn allocates the land, or link Dzatakpo is an island inhabited by a migrant fishing persons with landowners prepared to engage in community from Marfi and Anlo in the Volta region. "abunu" or "ye mayenkye." The land is owned and controlled by the chief, who charges residents a monthly rent of 2 Ghana cedis and The systems practiced in cocoa farming are the an additional yearly contribution in kind and cash "nhweso", "abunnu," and "ye ma yenkye." determined by the chief. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 19 In the savannah zones, the Tindanaa is the custodian of The major crops grown in this belt in order of impor- the land. Other secondary land custodians are the clan tance in terms of income and relevance to household and family heads. Land is given out to members of the food needs are cocoa, cassava, maize, tomatoes, plantain, community to farm for free. There are no fixed terms or garden eggs, yams, and coco yams. There is an adequate agreements for using someone's land. However, the availability of canes, which the community members use person renting would give either some farm produce or for roofing (thatching) homes and in making traps for a token gift as an appreciation for the use of the land. fishing. These are found on marshy farmlands owned Such wild resources in the community as Shea nut trees, and controlled by farm/landowners. The choices that dawadawa trees, and other wild resources can be people make with regard to food and commercial crops harvested by anyone except those on the farms of are defined by access to land, profitability of crops people. Any member of the community can use the grown, level of risk in farming, and others depending on river for economic and domestic purposes. But the lands the perception of gains by landowners and power hold- around the river are owned by specific landlords. One ers in the community. Sharecropping systems tend to cannot use river/valley beds unless you seek permission constrain the ability of the landless to make meaningful from the landowners. The various rights granted to livelihoods. Wages of agricultural laborers ($2­3 dollars different people as dictated by social norms informs the a day) are woefully inadequate, since the landowner translation of the asset base into resources for these does not allow the cultivation of food crops by workers people to engage in livelihood strategies. on the farm for subsistence. This perpetuates poverty Commercialized production in the cocoa regions has among migrant wage earners, who get sick and are produced several social classes, while traditional norms unable to return home. Similarly, women and youths in the savannah maintain a patriarchal system with easy who have not been lucky enough to inherit landed access to minimal resources. Socioeconomic status is property or do not have financial resources to invest in therefore an important indicator of access to assets and landed property ultimately lose out. Assets alone are not freedom of usage of these assets to carve out enough, but the social and economic conditions that livelihoods. allow people to use these assets to earn a decent liveli- hood are. Existing Livelihood Activities The coastal belt is dominated mainly by fisherfolk, fish- Within the forest communities, the ability to sustain mongers, and farmers. There are a few civil servants and and or cater to household necessities is dependent on teachers who also double as farmers and fishermen, like the size or number of cocoa farms that are owned or the assemblyman in Anyakpor, though on a smaller accessible. Cocoa farming is therefore the major scale. Most women are fishmongers and buy fish from economic activity in the community. Everyone in the the men at the sea shore and smoke them for sale. Most community has either a cocoa farm or is engaged as a community members who indulge in farming cultivate laborer on cocoa farms to earn income. Food crop farm- crops like onion, tomato, pepper, corn, water melon, ers are mostly women, even though every cocoa farmer cassava, okra, and garden eggs. They all agreed that also grows basic food crops for subsistence and as a onions fetch them more money than any other crop, as diversification strategy. Food for household consump- it can be stored for longer periods of time compared to tion is from the backyard farms or gardening done to others like pepper, tomato, and okra. About 10 percent supplement what is also cultivated on the cocoa farms of women indulge in trading activities to supplement as the cocoa plants mature. The farming systems prac- their income. They include the more vulnerable women ticed in the community have a bearing on the economic in the community who are into "table-top" petty trad- well-being of community members. Cola is in abun- ing, selling items like sugar, gari, tinned fish and dance on farmlands; about 10­20 bags of cola nuts can groundnuts among others, to make a living. In the be harvested monthly by households from their farm- urban slums, the major livelihoods are located within lands. They are stored and sold during periods of good the informal sector, composed mainly of trading, labor- pricing or periods when households need urgent cash. ers, shop assistants, petty traders, urban gardening, and These are controlled by farm/landowners. illegal coping activities. There is a high level of poverty, 20 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A as migrants continue to pour in by the day while 2002; Amanor 2005). This process is reverberating employment avenues and housing needs are not met. throughout the country, whereby people with financial Patrons are very important in the urban economy as resources are given priority over indigenes, who hitherto they provide accommodation and initial contacts for were said to possess some birth rights to land. For migrants. Subsequently, these migrants owe allegiance wealthier women, this is a positive development, while to the patrons and can be used and manipulated. Not all for the poor of both genders a new dawn of social rela- patrons are exploitative, as many of them are relatives tions that disenfranchises them is in vogue. who seek the genuine development of their kin. Lucky wards are trained in skills and financially assisted to With regard to the fishing community, inland fishing is start up businesses, while unlucky ones work for patrons the major activity for the households, with almost all and may be physically abused and exploited economi- the households engaged in fishing and its related activi- cally and sexually. ties, including, cleaning, drying, smoking, and selling of fish. There are also other minor activities, including The transition zone is a major food crop zone and a crop farming and animal rearing in the fishing commu- migrant receiving region. The major livelihood activities nity. However, the fishing activity is the preserve of the in this zone are cash crop farming (cocoa, cashew), food men, while crop farming is carried out by both men and crop farming (cassava, yam, maize), and inland fishing. women. The social differentiation of work roles in fish- Within the zone there are two distinct communities, ing communities leads to labor of women categorized with one being a typical farming community and the under domestic rather than commercial, with conse- other being predominantly a fishing community. In the quent loss of revenue. Since women have to process fish farming community, everybody ranked crop farming as and sell and account to their husbands, they lose their the main activity for the households. This was followed labor component. However, social change has led to by animal husbandry and trading. Apart from crop most fishermen now selling directly to commercial fish farming, all the other activities that were engaged in by buyers, who are able to also exploit these men as they people in the farming community were largely perceived are forced as "price takers" to accept whatever price is as secondary or supplementary activities. These liveli- offered to them.. The rising cost of fuel for venturing hood activities were engaged in by both men and deep into the oceans, coupled with the number of men women. The major crops cultivated include cassava, on each fishing expedition and the element of luck due tiger nut, cocoa, cashew, tomato, and maize. Cassava is to low fish densities, make these livelihoods a "coping" widely cultivated because it is the main staple food of business. the people who live in this community. The other crops--including tiger nut, cocoa, cashew, tomato, and The major livelihood activities in the communities of maize--are also popular for commercial purposes. Both the savannah belt are crop farming, animal rearing, dry men and women said that most of their land is not season gardening, processing of shea nuts and fertile any longer due to excessive use of fertilizer, which dawadawa, petty trading, and charcoal production. has in the long run reduced its fertility. In terms of There is cultivation of a wide range of cereals, including access, anybody can acquire land to farm in this some legumes. Crops farmed include maize, early millet, community provided he has satisfied all the necessary late millet, guinea corn, groundnuts, sorghum, yam, conditions and has the money to rent the land. Women bambara beans, beans, soya beans, onions, okra, and also have equal rights as men and can cultivate as large tomatoes. The rearing of animals--such as poultry, a piece of land as possible provided they have the guinea fowl, goats, sheep, and cattle--is a very impor- money to hire the land if they or their family do not tant activity dominated by men. They sell these animals possess family land. Migrants can also acquire land to in times of hardship to buy food to feed the households. farm provided they have money. Monetization of the Picking and processing of shea nuts and dawadawa is a economy seems to be altering social structures, but the major activity as it supports communities to feed their beneficiaries remain the same. Older men with titles households, especially during the lean season. In the (chiefs) to resources appropriate benefits to the neglect Guinea savannah, it is essentially women who pick and of their kin (Amanor 1999; Amanor 2001; Amanor process these nuts with a little support from their d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 21 husbands, while in the Sudan savannah it is both men high in the savannah zone, with 45 percent of respon- and women who do the picking. The picking of dents migrating on a temporary basis, and 40 percent dawadawa is done in the dry season, while the shea nut opting for permanent migration. During the long dry is done in the rainy season. The Shea nut season coin- season, most of the youth migrate to the southern part cides with the hunger gap period, so they virtually pick of Ghana in search of job opportunities on farms and in the nuts and prepare them for sale and then use the urban areas. Of late, the migration of women to urban proceeds to buy food. areas to work as head porters is on the rise. The burning of charcoal is mostly by women to support The forest and transitional zones are home for the upkeep of the household, especially during the migrants from the northern part of the country and farming off-season, is an important livelihood activity in also from the Volta region. These areas have such pull all the zones. In the Sudan savannah, it is strictly factors as cocoa farms and mineral mining activities controlled as there are few trees. There are laws regulat- that attract people to this zone. Migration from these ing the burning and cutting of trees. Livelihoods in the zones is normally to the urban areas of Kumasi and savannah are highly dependent on patriarchal values, as Accra and outside the country. Temporal migration for seniority in lineage ascribes assets to a few who are educational purposes is the highest, while poor employ- supported by the rest of the family in the production ment opportunities and the poor quality of social process. Wives and youths work on the farms of the amenities in smaller towns in these zones lead to family head and may be given small parcels of land to outmigration to the cities. grow commercial crops to meet their personal needs. Women are allowed in the northern region to plant In the coastal zone, about 25 percent and 40 percent of vegetables on their husbands' farms, which are sold households reported that their members migrated when the harvest is higher than household needs. This temporarily and permanently respectively, mainly to the trend is changing for many daring women, who now capital city of Accra. This involves a diversification of access lands from subchiefs to grow commercial crops livelihoods from mainly fishing and farming to informal such as groundnuts and vegetables. But they still have to trading, artisanship, and laborers for most of the first help out on the family lands before they move on migrants who are unable to secure formal sector to their own farms. This has led to many hiring young employment. Ghana's history of economic growth has men to cultivate and weed for them. This is often been one of neglect in rural areas and areas outside the funded from income from non-farm sources and "food timber, mining, and cocoa sectors, with a high concen- for work" arrangements based on social capital harvest- tration of investments mainly in the "golden triangle" ing. Unfortunately, women venturing into farming and covering Secondi-Takoradi, Tema, and Kumasi in the non-farm activities has led to "absconding" by men, who forest and coastal zones (Dickson 1968; Plange 1979; shed their responsibilities as providers of the home, Destombes 2006). Plange (1979) argues that within the thereby leading to higher workloads and stress on colonial context, and in relation to plantation, public, or women. This is a paradox of emancipation and mine labor--with particular reference to northern empowerment. Ghana between 1900­40--the individual cannot be conceived of as having made a rational decision, within migration Choices sometimes an infertile and overpopulated environment, to maximize his economic interests in response to Migration is an important strategy for both the poor market forces by migrating southwards. Indeed, in many and non-poor in Ghana. As a reaction to the threat of situations his rational and free decision was always climate change and other stressors, migrants tend to contrary to those forces. This precipitated the use of leave environmentally fragile areas for ecologically extra-economic mechanisms, first to encourage and then better places or to urban areas where they join mostly to enforce migration, which then became an induced the informal sector. The northern savannah has the activity in captivity--indeed, an institutional creation to highest rate of out-migration, mostly to the transition complement the demands of labor in the general and forest zones. The incidence of migration is quite process of capital accumulation. 22 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A There has been a post-colonial entrenchment of the lost their farms to the water and many houses were thesis that the underdevelopment of the north and other destroyed. Most areas of the northern savannah are low- peripheries in Ghana was a necessary corollary of devel- lying, mostly in the Volta Basin. These are very fertile opment of the colony (referring to southern Ghana) valleys, but potential risky investments, since heavy (Songsore 2003). Structural adjustment policies and downpours occurring within short periods cause massive associated poverty alleviation programs have entrenched damage physically and through soil saturation which the north-south divide and brought little equalization of prevents aeration for plants. opportunities (Kraus 1991; Rothchild 1991; Songsore 1992; Boafo-Arthur 1999; Konadu-Agyemang 2000; Cocoa cultivation used to be widespread in the transi- Konadu-Agyemang and Adanu 2003). The migration tional zone, but years of depletion of accumulated soil patterns of Ghana are therefore conscious livelihood fertility and the unreliable weather patterns has led to decisions based on a repertoire of forces, including its abandonment by most farmers (Gyasi et al. 1995). history, politics, economics, environment, and culture. This was affirmed in Buoyem, a farming community in the transition zone, as well as Kamaso and Gonukrom Experience with past Climate variability and in the forest zone. The elderly men in a focus group hazards discussion observed that about 20 years ago, there were thick forests with abundant fruits due to high rainfall. There are indications of significant environmental There were also lots of cocoa trees. But now the forest changes in the Sudan and Guinea savannah zones. In had diminished and the greater parts of the cocoa trees Tetauku and Boayini in the Savannah zone, there is a have been wiped away. This is obviously the result of clear understanding of such environmental changes. poor investment in cocoa farms when trees are old. The According to an educated elderly man in the focus communities are also vulnerable to strong winds preced- group of men in Tetauku: ing rains, with adverse impacts on life and property. This is a result of deforestation, which opens up the "At first we used to plant in April and it would landscape to winds and also the global environmental rain up to November, but now it starts in May change associated with frequent stormy weathers. to November." Specifically, participants observed the following changes: The rainy season has been shortened by about 2 months, thereby increasing the length of the dry season. 1. Thinned forest transiting into shrubs; about 2,000 These changes were also confirmed by a focus group of acres of forest lost for the past 30 years. women, who added that the current nature of rains is 2. Less and delayed rainfall season. The rainy season, highly destructive, causing floods and drought. They which used to start in late February or early indicated that the early rains were associated with good March, has now changed and starts in mid-March, yields, but now the rains usually stop before crops with highly erratic patterns. mature. In the past, the rains came down at regular 3. Extreme hot weather conditions; the sun is very intervals and allowed them to perform their different hot these days compared to some years back. activities on the farms. This is confirmed by the normal high rainfall distribution between 1951 to 1970 and the There could be continuous rains for about four days, declining and poor distribution of the period 1980 to and at other times it could rain for about eight times in 2000 identified by Owusu and Waylen (2009). a day. This they referred to as "yooyo," explaining that during this period, there could be showers for about an The rains are now so unpredictable that they have a hour, a little sunshine, and then more showers all negative impact on farming activities. Crop production through the day. Though the period of heavy rains ends is therefore the most affected in relation to climate in September or October, there were still some light change. Floods are also becoming an annual ritual in rains in these months, mostly in the evenings. Over the the communities. Just last year (2007), they indicated, past couple of years this phenomenon is not being there was a flood in the community and many people observed, as was the case some years back. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 23 The community members indicated that signs of immi- course, some land clearing might begin in February, nent rainfall could be determined by looking at cloud which is not synonymous with the wet season. There is formations in the atmosphere. One could predict how therefore a little confusion of terminology regarding the heavy or long the rains will fall by just looking at the rainy season, farming season, and wet season that needs gathered clouds. These days they see the clouds gather, clarification in any fieldwork. Rising temperatures are yet it passes by with no rain. About 10­20 years ago, the borne out by the instruments in Wenchi as by an upward rains always came when the clouds gathered. movement of 1.3°C between 1976 and 2000, but with a few years registering below the mean used. (Appendix 9 It was also noted that there was a lot of sunshine in presents rainfall data for selected stations in four zones.) March and as a result temperatures are normally high. However, temperatures in March this year have been In Dzatakpo, an island and a fishing community on higher than in past years. There is still a lot of sunshine Volta Lake located in the transition zone, both men and in May, when more rains are expected. The low rain women noted general variations in rainfall patterns as affects food crop production, which will have negative evidence of climate change. In particular, they observed impacts on food security. A woman participant in a the longer dry seasons; less rain leading to drought; focus group discussion expressed her fears of food lower water levels in the Pru and Volta rivers, particu- shortages should the sunny conditions prevail through- larly during the dry season; and strong heat waves, out the period of heavy rains: which were associated with the decreasing water level in the river. This is consistent with findings (Owusu et al. "This year the sunshine has been too much. 2008) of rainfall patterns in the Volta Basin. These When the sun shines like this the crops wither negative climatic conditions translated into the loss of and do not do well. When this happens, one biological diversity. Migratory birds used to visit season- hardly gets any food from the farms and it brings ally to indicate the presence of fish in the river. There is a lot of `ahokyere' (suffering) to the family." a disruption of fishing activities due to the progressive reduction in water levels and pollution of freshwater These climatic changes further impact on agriculture resources. Of course, these occurrences have human- and natural resources as follows: induced dimensions involving inappropriate fishing methods, such as the use of chemicals for fishing and · There are crop failures as a result of high tempera- smaller gauged nets, which disrupt the natural regenera- ture and low rainfall. tive capacity of the Volta Basin (Rubin et al. 1998). · Increased land degradation affects arable land for farming. The coastal savannah is the most vulnerable to sea erosion · There is an alteration of vegetation structure from resulting from rising sea levels due to melting glaciers and thick forest into thin forest and shrubs. rising sea temperatures. In the field study in · There is greater incidence of alien diseases and Ada-Anyakpor, the men claimed that some 20 years ago, pests as a result of changes in temperature and the distance between the seashore and the houses was humidity. about a mile. These days some houses are actually at the · There is continuous loss of non-timber forest prod- seashore due to sea erosion; these houses easily get flooded ucts; for example, cocoyam, which used to sprout a with every high tide. The chief and elders lamented that lot in the forest, is now progressively decreasing in the rainfall pattern has changed considerably. Some 20 density. years ago, it used to rain for a longer period, but these days · Some rivers dry out completely, sometimes making it hardly even rains normally. They attributed these water for household activities scarce. changes to the intense heat being experienced today. The youth intimated that about 10 years ago, signs of a cloudy Meteorological data for Wenchi in the transition zone sky were accompanied by rainfall, but this is no longer the does not bear out the assertion of the farming season case. Most of the infrastructure along the beach has been starting in February but rather in March, with an aver- destroyed, while fishing is becoming dangerous with the age of 50 mm rainfall recorded from 1950 to 2000. Of turbulent waves at sea using the traditional canoe. 24 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A These climatic changes have a variety of impacts on late March. Day-time temperatures are very high. The marine ecosystems and coastal livelihoods. For example: men said that the impact of climate change affects mainly human health and the settlements. Extreme · Sea level rise such as coastal inundation and erosion temperatures are coupled with seasonal floods, which has displaced the population along the coast. are enhanced by the lack of proper site engineering and · There is disruption of livelihoods based on fishing planning. This leads to the increasing incidence of due to saltwater intrusion into freshwater resources. vector diseases, especially malaria. There is also continu- · The declining fish catch is leading to livelihood ous deterioration in infrastructure because most of the diversification and impoverishment. structures in the slum are built of wood, while the block · The invasion and destruction of coastal wetlands houses are progressively affected by erosion caused by and beaches in the communities along the coast has frequent flooding. The slum dwellers of Nima recount affected tourism in the area, coupled with the loss the ordeal they have undergone during recent flooding of migratory birds and marine turtles. due to poor urban planning and inadequate provision of · Food crop yields are declining, and farmlands are drains. The destruction of property by floods is common being lost. to all the zones, but more serious in the coastal and savannah zones. While it is known that climate change is adversely affecting fish migration and reproduction patterns in Reliance on bush meat as a source of income and Ghana, these factors are really just the "final straw," in household protein needs is an age-old practice in all that climate variability comes on top of prolonged and zones. However, there is a crisis in the bush meat indus- very heavy overexploitation of fish stocks; widespread try. With small game increasingly scarce in the southern use by artisanal fishers of destructive fishing techniques, forest, most hunter families in the savannah zone have including DDT, dynamite, and carbolic acid; and the been converted into farmers. The failure to procure use of very small-gauge fishing nets. With regard to antelopes for the Aboachire Festival in the central marine fishing, the collapse of the Gulf of Guinea's region--part of the customary practice where young large marine ecosystem is not the product of climate men in several groups compete in the grasslands and change, but of overfishing not by Ghanaians, or West forest to capture a live antelope--is testimony to drastic Africans more generally, but by EU trawlers working in declines in these resources. Some studies (Brashares et international waters (Cromwell 2002). In other words, al. 2004) argue that the pressure on food supplies caused this cause of vulnerability can be attributed to forces in by the collapse of the Gulf of Guinea's fishery has led to the global economy driven by consumption in the the overhunting of many terrestrial species. Expanding advanced economies, but cannot be easily connected to the agricultural frontier (Gyasi et al. 1995) and bush climate change. The declining fish hauls are another burning practices of the savannah (Korem 1985) have source of vulnerability that could be exacerbated by the also been blamed for declining bush meat supplies. effects of climate change. This recognition is very Declining and disappearing game is a major source of important in terms of identifying sound and balanced vulnerability, as it deprives many of an important source adaptation strategies. In the fisheries sector, for example, of livelihood and survival. such strategies could include educating communities about more sustainable practices, instituting and enforc- The traditional building technology of the past that ing international laws on marine resource exploitation, withstood the test of time in all zones has given up and providing alternatives based on aid from the busi- under these extreme conditions. Table 4 shows the chal- ness world. lenges associated with current climatic change and vari- ability in three ecological zones summarizing the In Nima, a slum in Accra located in the coastal savan- narrative above. nah zone, the women said the community rarely experi- ences cold winds (sea breeze) these days, which are Findings from the field validation survey show adverse necessary to keep temperatures low. The rains come impacts of climate change on both groundwater and very late, whereas the rainy season used to start from surface water availability. In Boayini, in the Guinea d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 25 TABLE 4. SOmE prEvAiLiNG CLimATiC impACTS iN ThrEE ECOLOGiCAL ZONES iN GhANA Savannah Transition Coastal · stormy weather and destruction · Reduced water volume · massive erosion displacing settlements · top soil erosion and soil infertility · changes in rainfall patterns (late start, and livelihoods of people along the coast · long drought and flooding stops early), thus affecting planting · dwindling fishing stock · increased food insecurity and malnutrition seasons · drastic reduction in the volume of water · competition between humans and · Water stress is also leading to declining · severe flooding along the sprawling animals for water soil fertility urban cities and towns · increasing conflicts around resources, · thick forest now transiting into shrubs · higher risk and exposure to disasters especially land · Extreme heat and disease burden · nexus of poverty, poor infrastructure, and · increased migration · Waterborne diseases increased climate impacts Source: Field validation, Focus Group discussions, 2009 savannah, the men stressed that, although in the past, at In Buoyem (Transition zone), an elderly woman stated the peak of the dry season, the river in the community that: shrank, yet it was enough for drinking and for other purposes. The impact of climate change became clear to "About 20 years ago, the water we fetched from them when the community did not only lose water from the streams for domestic purposes was naturally the river, but also dug four wells and did not hit water. very cool like iced water and was also tasty than The water spring up during the rainy season and disap- pipe borne water. But now the taste has changed pears in the dry season. In Tetauku, in the Sudan savan- and it is not as cool as it used to be. I think the nah, two river valleys were enough to meet their water persistent warmness of the weather coupled with and fish requirements in the past. The valleys contained farming along the river banks had affected the water throughout the year, but now dry up from March coolness and taste of our stream water." to April, so they depend on wells. They have also observed that the Bibiri River, which is In Kamaso in the western region, in the past the rivers the biggest river in the community, used to be deep provided enough potable water throughout the year. (about 4 to 5 feet deep) but is now barely 1 foot deep. There was no need for boreholes and wells. The commu- nity has had to construct boreholes and wells to comple- In Dzatakpo (transition zone), the community says ment the rivers. Some individuals have also constructed there is a low level of water in the Pru River and the wells in their homes. Periods of extreme heat from too Volta River compared to 20 years ago, particularly much sunshine also affects how the water is drawn from during the dry season. In their view, the low water level the wells and boreholes. As one participant indicated: in the rivers was a result of progressive rain deficits experienced over the past 10­20 years in the community "During times when the water level in the well (Owusu et al. 2009). falls, community members queue into the night to draw water for home use. Women sometimes According to the women in Ada-Anyakpor (coastal fight at the well over the water." zone), the sea erosion and its attendant flooding of houses has caused well water to become salty. The men In constructing the wells, the community has had to dig said river patches dry up very quickly due to the intense deeper to strike water. The first well the community dug heat, making it very difficult for those who rely on river in 1992 was about 18 feet deep. The second was about water for their livelihood. 22 feet, and the third--which is almost complete--is about 29 feet deep. The men partly attributed the depth Also in Nima-Maamobi (urban slum in the coastal differences to the water table, which they believed had savannah zone), according to the focus group of women, gone low due to poor groundwater recharge. although there is the supply of pipe borne water, this 26 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A has become rather unreliable in recent times. As a result, perceptions seriously as they influence the adaptations several households resort to the use of poly-tanks to that result. This suggests the importance of sensitization harvest and store water, while others also sell water from and advocacy on climate change that takes on board a similar receptacles. The cost of water in Accra is too political economy perspective to capture the interlinked high for the poor. causal structure of vulnerability. The differences in the perceptions of community Table 5 provides a summary of the hazards of climate members and the readings by instruments as shown by change on the studied communities. the literature and statistics from the meteorological services are a matter of degree and accuracy of dates. All Autonomous Adaptation practices and household the perceptions of the people with regard to environ- decision making mental change are real, but when such incidents such as droughts and floods occur are often a matter of contro- The households have adopted a number of strategies to versy and inaccuracy. Also, exaggerations of the extent cope with the adverse impacts of the changed climatic of sea erosion and saltwater intrusions are common. conditions and their hazards. These strategies range Other explanations underpin the occurrence of these from the application of agricultural techniques to diver- changes rather than just climate. Fish stocks in rivers sification of livelihood activities. Household strategies might not necessarily be declining on a yearly basis as should be seen as responses to wider socioeconomic and perceived, but rather the number of fishermen is environmental influences. increasing and therefore leads to lower catches on the average, and not on the total absolute catch. The extent In the forest and transitional zones, most of the strate- to which these environmental changes are attributable gies adopted by households largely fall within the appli- to economic policies, human extraction methods, and cation of agricultural techniques. The majority of reflections of social relations are not easily elicited by households resorted to adapting planting dates as a way anecdotal data. However, we need to take these of diversifying their risk against the adverse variability TABLE 5. hAZArdS ENdANGEriNG LivELihOOdS By ZONES Frequency Percent Year of Hazards Event Forest Transition Savannah Coastal Forest Transition Savannah Coastal less rainfall leading to 2006, 07, 7 6 4 10 35 30 20 50 droughts 08, 09 periods of prolonged 2000, 20 05, 4 2 3 2 20 10 15 10 drought, leading to 2006, 07, 08 crops drying out or livestock not having sufficient water Excess rainfall leading 2007, 2008 3 0 5 n/A 15 0 25 n/A to floods too heavy showers 2007, 2008 1 4 6 n/A 5 20 30 n/A leading to damage to crops, livestock, and property periods of extreme 2006, 2007, 5 8 2 8 25 40 10 40 temperatures, leading to 08, 09 scorched crops total 20 20 20 20 100 100 100 100 Source: household Survey, 2009 d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 27 of the climate. This strategy was followed by diversifica- petty trading activities; fish smoking and mongering; tion of crops planted; that is, planting of minor crops-- road side catering services; and small shops. such as cashews, tiger nuts, and tomatoes--rather than the traditional major crops of cocoa and oil palm. In the coastal zone, according to the men, most farmers Households also resort to crop selection and adapting to who previously were into cultivation of cassava and cropping densities by choosing crops with shorter gesta- maize have now changed to onion cultivation, since tion periods (such as tomatoes) and drought-resistant onions are easier to store and sell later for more money. crops (such as cassava). Households also use irrigation The settler community also stated that fishermen now farming when they are close to river banks as a way of resort to the use of light and some chemicals to attract surviving the long drought conditions. Most of these are the fish into their nets. This is because Chinese fisher- also responses to market influences determined by men have been engaging in pair-trawling activities. structural adjustment policies. Some fishermen also have migrated to Atakpame in Togo to ply their trade. The chief pointed out that On the farms, farmers are also planting trees to act as many of the youth in the community have resorted to shading for their cocoa plants. Some are also turning to traveling to Accra in search of alternative livelihoods the cultivation of teak plantations, which produce logs like working as drivers or drivers' mates. Most of them used as electricity poles to augment income or make start off as mates and eventually become drivers. Some efficient use of depleted soils. The farmers also use manage to become car owners after some time and fertilizers to improve the soil fertility and increase yields therefore think it is better than staying back at home to of their crops. Cocoa seedlings are planted closely at engage in either fishing or farming. Most vulnerable small intervals so that some can survive when others are and poor people in the community usually help on the unable to survive. Some farmers indicated that they had farms of other people. The women help with planting resorted to using different varieties of cocoa seedlings and harvesting, while the men do clearing and tilling of that are drought-resistant. Some individuals disclosed the land on the farms for a fee. The men also help to that they have to move into other nearby communities drag the fishing nets, while the women help sort out the in search of lands to expand their farming activities. different species of fish caught. Through these activities, They indicated that they were not migrating into those they earn some income. The gender dimension of liveli- communities to settle, but were just interested in acquir- hoods is a reflection of a division of labor informed by a ing land. Some households have also constructed sheds history of patriarchal relations that prioritize men over to store maize for lean periods. These strategies reflect women. Most activities in which female labor is appro- wider influences and are shaped by social relations, priated are referred to as family work. These activities which determine the degree of success in adapting or take a lot of time, leaving women with only limited time diversifying. for their own activities. Interestingly, some well-to-do women have sponsored the activities of male fishermen, In Kamaso particularly, there is a community initiative who are forced to sell their produce to these women at to have houses roofed with roofing sheets instead of agreed upon low and stable prices. This is risky for the thatch or raffia, which are susceptible to heavy storms. women, but highly profitable when there is a good According to the community members, the roofing catch. Hence, commercialization of the Ghanaian econ- sheets provide some comfort and safety from storms omy is is creating some new opportunities for a few and heavy rains. The domestic water problem is women. attended to through the construction of hand-dug wells and boreholes, which guarantee some amount of water In the urban slum of Nima, the women asserted that in the dry season. Apart from the community boreholes there are a growing number of poor people who cannot or stand pipes, some individuals have also dug wells in provide for themselves and their children. As a result, their homes. Other strategies employed include redi- young children are made to engage in street-selling to recting gullies to carry water out of the communities; supplement family income. According to the chiefs, a lot engaging the services of community volunteer fire offi- of young people are resorting to trading as their major cers to manage bushfires, while the women engage in activity. They buy cheap merchandise from Togo and sell 28 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A it in Ghana. Others also engage in motor bike and bicycle people's farms for a fee ("paa"). This was dominated by rental businesses. More elderly men have been involved in men, but has since become suitable for both males and changing money at the black market rates to earn a living. females. There is an increasing redirection of migration Some young people have traveled to other parts of Africa from rural-rural to rural-urban, especially among young and Europe, where they hope to make a living. women. The men lamented that the practice is affecting family unity and progress, as many of the females pick In the savannah belt, communities have come up with up bad attitudes when they migrate, endangering both many strategies to cope with variability in climatic the peace and health of the family. conditions. One form of adaptation is an increase in the size of farms. Women who used not to farm/weed on Existing Community policies, Laws, or practices only family farms now farm individual plots to supple- that hinder or Facilitate Adaptation ment the efforts of the men. They also employ the services of tractors and bullocks instead of just hand The traditional authorities are putting in place and tilling. There is also a shift in the variety of crops culti- adapting old laws and practices to check activities that vated; for instance, from a four-month maturing maize harm the environment. In Boayini, in the Guinea savan- variety to a three-month maize variety. There is also a nah belt, a committee has been set up to check the shift away from guinea corn and late millet to more cutting of trees. The traditional authority ensures that soya beans, groundnuts, and beans. In the Sudan and they advise the youth not to practice bush burning and Guinea savannah belts, groundnuts and soya beans are also ask the youth not to use chemicals (DDT) in the fast becoming main crops cultivated by everyone. water bodies. They punish those who violate the various Farmers now resort to the use of fertilizer or manure rules and laws binding the community. In Tetauku, in and other chemicals like herbicides and insecticides to the Sudan savannah, there are also strict laws governing improve their crop yields. Dry season gardening has burning and cutting of trees. These were the key become very important, especially along the river beds comments that came up in the women's focus group and using hand-dug wells. In the case of the community discussion at Tetauku: from the Sudan savannah, some of the community members commute to the banks of the White Volta, · "We are not allowed to cut down economic trees which is about ten miles from the community. They such as dawadawa, and shea trees." cultivate vegetables like onions, tomatoes, okra, and · "Before we sell the fuel wood, it is inspected to aleefu, which gives them a good source of income. ensure that they are not economic trees." Selling charcoal and fuelwood is a major source of · "We are not allowed to fetch wood more than one income, although the practice is limited in the Sudan donkey cart at a time to the market." savannah due to the scarcity of trees. There is intensifi- · "This year (2009), a bylaw prohibiting the cutting cation in picking and processing of Shea nuts and of trees has been passed. We can only cut shrubs or dawadawa by women, while the men cut grasses for sale. dead trees." Animal rearing is a dominant activity by community · "One cannot pick shea nuts on another person's members. This is predominantly championed by the farm. The trees on the farm belong to the owner of men, although women also own some animals. Most the farm." houses have structures for rearing pigs, while some members have Fulani herdsmen who take care of their In Buoyem (transition zone), the traditional and kinship cattle. At the peak of the hunger period, people depend structure in the community requires that at the family on the use of Shea butter and the leaves of some edible level, it is the family heads (usually men) who have plants. They boil the leaves and then add Shea butter, control over the allocation and use of all family resources, which enables them to cope until the early crops are particularly land. Land is the basis for most livelihood harvested. Migration has become a major adaptation activities. In some cases, the land is allocated such that strategy in the northern part of Ghana. Many commu- only the marginal land goes to the women, who are nity members, especially youths, migrate to southern perceived as lacking the capacity to cultivate large Ghana to work. In the case of men, they work on other portions of land. This situation further worsens the d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 29 vulnerability of women, as they end up having small resources together through communal labor to undertake portions of less fertile lands that are less productive. community projects. Every able-bodied community Because land is generally not sold, migrants find it diffi- member is expected to participate in communal labor cult to plant crops that have high commercial value--such activities set for the day. They have also instituted what is as cocoa and cashews--but long gestation periods. This is termed "Adim" (resting day), a three-day rest period because they do not have permanent use of the land. during which community members are forbidden to They are therefore limited to cultivation of only crops engage in farming activities on their farms except to with short gestation periods, which unfortunately have gather food for the household. Adim occurs on the third low commercial value compared to cocoa and cashew. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in each month. In recent times, its observance has not been very strict due A migrant farmer from the northern region captured to the influx of faith-based organizations, particularly the this problem in the following statement: Christian faith in the community. To protect the natural resources of the area, between January and March of each "Though I wish to, but I could not plant crops year, bathing in the Sure River is prohibited. Fishing is which have long gestation periods particularly allowed in the rivers, but they frown on the use of chem- of high commercial value like cocoa and icals such as DDT in the river, while farming or entry cashew. This is because land is generally not into forest reserves is also prohibited. sold here. Since I do not have permanent use of the land leased to me, I am limited to culti- They highlighted the following as policies/practices: vating only crops with short gestation periods with low commercial value compared to cocoa · Observance of "adim" (day of rest). During lean peri- and cashew. I believe I would have been better ods where food and family cash flow is low, the off if I am granted permanent use of the land." observance of adim contributes to food insecurity as one cannot engage in active farm activities. The Buoyem community also has a policy that protects · Prohibition on the rearing of sheep/goats. According to an some part of the forest as reserves where people are not elderly woman, the regulation not to rear sheep or allowed to carry out any livelihood activity. There is also goats in the community is hindering their adaptive an ecotourism project that seeks to preserve parts of the capacity. She noted that sometime back, a man used to land, caves, and water bodies for generating income for rear sheep and goats, which he sold when he needed the community. There is a bylaw that farming activities money. If they were allowed to rear sheep and goats, should be at least 20 meters away from river banks. community members and households could get protein supplements from the meat and also extra cash. In Dzatakpo, a fishing community also in the transition zone, residents are not allowed to either hit the river According to the chiefs in Anyakpor, there are no norms with a stick or cut the river stumps in the river as it will or practices hindering adaptive capacities of the commu- stir the fish away and affect the catch of the fishermen. nity people. Due to the transformation from traditional Going to fish and farm on Tuesdays is also prohibited. to the belief in Christianity, there are a lot of beliefs and This is to ensure some breaks in fishing so that the fish norms that are no longer observed. The men said keep- stocks, particularly the fingerlings, are not depleted. ing fowl, goats, and sheep in the community was forbid- This policy is also tied with another that bans the use of den due to the destruction caused to crops. This policy very close-woven fishing nets in fishing, so that the has been revised, and these animals are permitted fingerlings in the river are not depleted. provided they can be well-kept in their pens. Offenders are made to repair the damage caused by their domestic According to the women in Kamaso in the forest zone, a livestock and fined appropriately for any inconveniences number of policies hinder or enable their adaptive capac- caused to the victim. The chief and his elders revealed ity. Those most affected include the "ahokyerefo" (those that no farming was allowed on Thursdays and Fridays in difficulties or most vulnerable) and the "modenbofo" for reasons they could not give, but this practice has (those trying hard). The community pools its human been discontinued for the past 10 years due to the 30 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A people's new belief in Christianity. According to them, execution of laws and policies in the hands of family there is a regulation against the frying of fish at the heads. These traditional hierarchical power systems inter- seashore. People are also not allowed to go to the seaside act with the district assembly, which is the decentralized in bathroom slippers. These measures were to ensure formal institution in each geographical zone. Local that the beach was kept clean at all times. It was governance results from the interaction of the traditional revealed during the meeting with the women's group system, district assemblies, and sector ministries. The that carrying head-pans to the seaside to fetch water is most visible sector ministries are the Ministry of Food not permitted. Pots are rather preferred. This regulation and Agriculture, Ministry of Education, and the Ministry was in line with the rituals performed to enhance their of Health. The district assemblies have the responsibility fishing business. However, this regulation has also been for the day-to-day running of the district, but with affected by Christianity. The coming of Christianity has limited resources compared to the sector ministries. seriously affected the traditional system and social prac- tices of the people of this community. Each of the communities in the forest zone has a chief who is recognized as the leader of the community. The Nima-Maamobi, which is located in the capital city of leadership in both communities include the chief, an Accra, is affected by the policies of the Accra Mmerantehene (youth leader), a queen mother, a group Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), which influenced the of elders, and a unit committee member representing adaptive capacity of community members. They cited the institution of national governance at the community the policy against indiscriminate siting of shops as a key level. However, in Gonukrom, there are chiefs or leaders inhibiting policy. In addition, most people hardly have of the various ethnic groups represented in the commu- access to enough capital to enable them to engage in nity. These leaders play a supporting role to the new forms of livelihood activities. Another is that if community chief in providing leadership to the commu- anyone reports any wrongdoing in the community, the nity. They are also responsible for settling all ethnic- AMA does not take any action. Poor enforcement of related disputes within their areas of influence. laws and regulations by local government is a major hindrance to adaptive capacity, especially of the poor. The coastal community is headed by the overall chief, who is assisted by leaders of five clans, namely The rules of the game in each zone are socially negoti- Dangmebiawe, Adebiawe, Korgbor, Lomobiawe, and ated and transformed with inputs from different interest the Tekpebiawe. All the leaders are involved in the deci- groups, normally dominated by the powerful who seek sion-making process regarding issues involving the to maintain their status quo. However, state rules people in the community. enforced by institutions translating the country's consti- tution seek to bring a balanced and equitable system of In the savannah belt communities in northern Ghana, access. Modern institutional arrangements may tend to two clear leadership structures emerged from the study. constrict rather than enable livelihoods and adaptive First is the hierarchical structure practiced by the capacity. The conflict between modern religion and Mamprusis. Although the other three tribes in the African traditional belief systems is both a blessing and community have their leaders, they report to the a curse to the management of resources and guidance of Mamprusi chief, who is at the top of the hierarchy. social relations. This is a gap that needs to be filled by There are many other subordinates involved, including conscious negotiation, rather than allowing market the Tindana as the custodian of the land, and the maga- notions to influence decisions that are more inimical zia (women leader), who is part of the leadership struc- than traditional patriarchal systems. ture of the community. decentralization, Local Governance, and At Tetauku in the Sudan savannah, there are clan heads. participation in Formal Organizations Although there is a chief, he is not resident in the community and therefore not the dominant authority in Local governance by traditional institutions is in the the community, but rather it is the tindana. The chief, hands of chiefs and subchiefs, with the ultimate tindana, magazia, and assemblyman were identified as d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 31 those who can facilitate their adaptation. An elder very high in the institutional analysis conducted with contends that `These people all enhance and support our the men and women groups in the community. As they activities. The chief listens to us and attends our meeting indicated: when we invite him." "ZOVFA builds our capacity to improve upon Participation in formal organizations has been on the our indigenous knowledge; ZOVFA supports increase in the recent past due to decentralized and us in taking important decisions such as adopt- participatory governance introduced by the government. ing new farming methods to improve our The district assembly system has unit committee harvest and in taking proper care of our live- members in addition to the assembly representative, who stock; and ZOVFA involves us in decision together with the community deliberate about the making and they are highly reliable, always community's needs, problems, and possible desired solu- doing their best to meet our needs." tions. These issues are translated into strategies, which are communicated to the assembly and sector ministries for Other institutions and personalities mentioned action. It is easier dealing with the assembly system as it included: is claimed to be more democratic and fair in sharing proceeds and projects than the sector ministries, where · Nutrition mothers club established by Ghana power and connections are the key to eliciting support. Health Service in Bawku. The club provided a This finding means that support for climate change adap- grinding mill. tation would be better allocated by the district assemblies, · MOFA ­ they provide us with seeds for planting but with technical support from the ministries, since the and support us in solving our farming problems. assemblies do not have the expertise to handle them. · CARE International ­ They support ZOVFA with resources to also support the community. Local Assessments of Existing public investments · John Bugri ­ He is a native of the community and and Access to Services an opinion leader who supported the community with a motorable road. The adaptive capacity of communities to climatic · The Ghana Association of Conservation of Nature hazards is highly dependent on the level and quality of (GACON) provides acacia trees and creates fire public investments in both economic and social infra- belts to prevent fire from destroying the forest. structure and services. These enhance both the physical/ · SARI ­ Build our capacity on new crop varieties economic capital and the human capital of the commu- and also provide us with seeds. nities. These two forms of capital in turn influence the · District Assembly ­ local development; for instance ingenuity of people and facilitation in adapting liveli- grades/ rehabilitates our road at least once every year. hoods and livelihood practices. Public investments are understood here as resources produced by external orga- In Buoyem, in the transition zone, both the men and nizations such as NGOs and the state. women explained that there was little government support extended to them with regard to climate-related In the savannah zone, the most dominant institutions hazards. Though the unit committee argued that they do that provide support are nongovernmental organizations mobilize disaster intervention groups to support the (NGOs). In Boayini, the Presbyterian Agricultural community in the case of disaster, the community Station located at Langbinsi provides different support members said that this was not the case since they do not services to the community members. It provides the recall benefiting from any intervention at the household latest varieties of seeds (Bambara beans, beans, maize) level. However, they agreed that government provides and also supports them with training programs in social services such as schools and clinics and rehabilitates planting and other farm management practices. In these facilities during climate-related disasters. Tetauku, the Zuri Organic Vegetable Farmers Association (ZOVFA) is providing support to the In the Dzatakpo community, both the men and women community members. As a result, ZOVFA was ranked explained that they receive no support from any institution 32 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A with regard to climate-related hazards. One of the Food Company in Tema as having helped with the subchiefs in the community made the following comment: provision of tomato seeds, fertilizer, and insecticide and also arranged to buy the farm produce. However, they "We lacked all social amenities necessary to lamented about the unfavorable terms of the arrange- sustain lives here. We have to send our children ment, which left some members heavily indebted. across the river every day or stay with relatives on the other side of the river so that they could In Nima-Mamobi, some institutions that exist within the go to school. If the government could not community and who, according to the youth, are provide us any social amenities how would any supportive of livelihood strategies included, in order of institution know that we also exist here and ranking, the Muslims Family Counselling Services extend any help to us?" (MFCS), Legal Resources Centre (LRC), Mothers' Club, Federation of Youth Clubs (FYC), National Disaster Table 6 shows the institutional assessment in Kamaso in Management Organization (NADMO), and Mankind the forest zone. The scores for formal institutions were Awareness. Though much is expected, the Accra low; this is because according to the people, they have Metropolitan Assembly is not doing much, as drains are little or no contact with them. However, they identified poorly constructed, garbage collection is poor, and public institutions such as the family, Mmrantehene (youth schools and community schools are overcrowded. leader), the church, and Odikro (chief ) as very impor- tant. Individual and community struggles are seen as The response from the communities in the transition, more important than the input from the state, as these coastal, and forest zones with regard to institutional are very limited. support seems to place emphasis on the importance of mainly NGOs. Public investments and services from In Anyakpor, in the coastal savannah, the chiefs the state are static, as schools, clinics, roads, and other mentioned the Adventist Relief Agency (ADRA), which infrastructure is old and not being expanded. The previously provided the farmers with fertilizer to improve capacity of the state to meet the increasing demand for their soil as an important institution. Agricultural exten- social and economic infrastructure is weak and being sion officers have also helped by supplying women with taken over by NGOs who also provide palliative chicks and piglets to rear. Also identified is the Trusty measures since their reach is often low. TABLE 6. iNSTiTUTiONS ThAT prOvidE SUppOrT iN KAmASO (FOrEST ZONE) Provides help Have a say in Institution Trust when needed Effective Reliable decision making scoring over 50 district assembly 10 10 -- 3 10 Extension officers/ cocoa service division 5 -- -- -- -- ngo 25 25 30 30 25 member of parliament 20 25 20 15 20 mmrantehene (youth leader) 50 50 50 45 50 chief/ odikro 45 40 50 40 45 family 50 40 40 50 45 church 45 35 30 45 35 Unit committee member 1 10 15 20 30 police 5 15 20 0 5 Source: Field validation, Focus Group discussions, 2009 d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 33 policies and institutional Capacities needed to because pushing resources into one sector--such as Facilitate Adaptation improving crop yields--without concomitant improve- ments in roads and marketing facilities would be coun- Several suggestions were made with regard to improving terproductive. Policies need to be crafted using the livelihoods and increasing adaptive capacity. According sustainable livelihoods framework with climate change to the women's focus group discussion in Tetauku as a major threat. (Sudan savannah), new and improved seed varieties that withstands the current climate conditions should be C rO S S - CU T Ti N G O B S ErvATi O N S : CO p iN G provided. The men also mentioned a reliable source of S Tr AT E Gi E S v E rS U S A d Ap TATi O N water for irrigation, such as dams and wells for dry- season gardening. They also stressed the need for cheap The mix of coping and adaptation strategies is neces- and subsidized farming inputs, such as bullocks, tractors, sary for the survival of the poor. Past climate hazards fertilizer, and improved seeds to facilitate their farming and trends or perceptions of these hazards influences activities. There was also the suggestion that women adaptation strategies selected in terms of crops should be provided with loan facilities to do petty trad- planted, diversification, and household labor distribu- ing, as this would help them to further support their tion. Climate-induced contingencies such as crop fail- families. ure due to drought have to be dealt with using coping strategies such as drawing down assets, which is In all the study sites, the following areas were advocated usually livestock in the savannah and other zones. for future policy to target: Coping strategies in this case are not bad or associated with negative outcomes, as the literature seems to · Irrigation facilities to enhance farming during poor suggest (Davies 1996), but an important temporal raining seasons, dry seasons, and also to help avoid measure to allow people to reorganize and put in place farming close to the river banks. long-lasting adaptation strategies such as wells for · Financial support for all livelihood activities in both irrigation, diversification of livelihood activities, and a rural and urban areas. division of labor among household members. · Regular interactions between community members Similarly, formal organisations--such as relief NGOs and with the state and NGOs on emerging prob- and NADMO--engage in public coping strategies lems and best solutions. when disasters strike, while sector ministries plan · Improvements in social services, especially water strategies to climate-proof future livelihoods in their and sanitation facilities, health, education, and sectors. infrastructure. · Modernization of building technology to deal with Coping strategies buy time for people to effectively plan floods and winds. the future based on the past and imagined scenarios of · Mechanization of farming and more use of modern what trends will occur. Local governments often cope inputs. with infrastructural collapse--such as roads washed · Improve access to markets. away by torrential rains--by simply leveling with grad- · Encourage tree planting and conservation of ers, while the next year's budget is tuned toward biodiversity. re-graveling with materials that can withstand the new · Human capacity building through training and threat. Due to financial constraints, some local govern- education on different activities used in each zone. ments end up coping year-in and year-out until there is · Improve governance systems by making rules work some foreign assistance to undertake the massive invest- for all. ments needed. Similarly, at the household level, the · Curb rural-urban migration through improvements poor are not able to carry out the needed adaptation in rural livelihood activities. measures such as erosion control bunds, wells, diversifi- cation, and intensification of crop and animal farming Policies need to target sectoral and locational circum- because they do not have the assets needed for such stances. The integrated approach emerges as a necessity investments. They therefore continuously cope with all 34 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A old and new climate hazards on a daily basis. Even long Actions in the forest zones included: after the hazard, most poor people continue to suffer the long-term indirect effects of climate hazards in a · Increasing use of hand-dug wells rather than rivers typical downward spiral of poverty. for water. · Farmers resort to planting more trees to act as Local/Community Adaptation mechanisms/Actions shading for their cocoa plants. · Cocoa seedlings are planted closely at small inter- Local responses to emerging climate impacts has been vals so that some can survive when others are spatially variable, depending on the different vulnerabil- unable to survive. ities. In the northern savannah, the main responses · People are diversifying into silviculture, with teak include: plantations preferred. · Increasing use of use fertilizers to improve soil · Cultivate larger farms as an insurance mechanism. nutrients for crops. · Women are now full-time farmers as opposed to a · High use of improved drought-resistant cocoa limited role in sowing and harvesting in the past. varieties. · Higher use of mechanization such as tractors, bull- · Extensification of agriculture for both cocoa and ock/donkey plows, and carts. food crops. · Adoption of new varieties of crops with shorter ges- · Construction of barns to store maize for lean high- tation periods, with higher commercial values. price periods. · Increasing use of fertilizer or manure and other · Employing erosion control measures by redirecting agro-chemicals to increase yields. gullies. · Dry-season gardening with small irrigation systems · Engaging services of community volunteer fire offi- using hand-dug wells and pumps along rivers. cers to manage bushfires. · Engaging in off-farm activities such as charcoal and fuelwood harvesting, or intensification in picking Actions in the fishing community included: and processing of shea and dawadawa. · Out-migrate to improve livelihoods or reduce bur- · Adapt to night fishing and exploring deep into the den on household. lake and rivers. · Animal rearing as major asset to buffer seasonal · Using foreign fishing nets which are able to cast hunger. deeper. · Diversifying to other activities during the rains and In the transition zone, the following actions are the lean fishing season. important: Actions in the coastal community included: · Cultivate versatile crops like cassava, which tol- erates high variable weather conditions. · Move from cereal cultivation to vegetables (onions) · Adoption of new varieties of crops with shorter with higher commercial values. gestation periods with higher commercial value; · Resort to illegal methods of fishing such as the use maize and tomatoes are the favored. of lights and some chemicals to attract the fish into · Planting along the river banks and streams for their nets. irrigation purposes (common only among vege- · Adapt boats by using outboard motors to venture table farmers such as tomatoes, peppers etc.). deeper into the sea. · Adapt planting dates according to timing of · Fishermen migrate to other West African countries rains. to fish (Atakpame in Togo). · Phasing of cultivation as insurance by planting · Poorer people help on the farms of other people, at different dates on same land. drag the nets of incoming boats, and sort out the · Very early morning farm work to avoid excruci- different species of fish landed for a fee or small ating heat from the sun. share of the harvest. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 35 · Migration is a major strategy to declining fish Community actions/strategies that need urgent atten- stocks and unviable agriculture. tion and support in the coastal community are: Community actions/strategies that need urgent atten- · Financial facilities to aid investment in fishing, tion and support in the savannah community are: farming, and non-farm activities. · The provision of electricity is paramount to the suc- · Early maturing and drought-resistant varieties of cess of livelihoods, such as the use of cold facilities crops, regular extension services to improve farming for fish. practices, and affordable farm inputs, especially · Skill training for the youth to enable diversification agro-chemicals. into the expanding urban systems of the Accra- · Support for small-scale irrigation, especially dams Tema conurbation. for dry-season gardening. · Farm inputs/implements such as bullocks, plows, These are not just a wish list, but interventions that can and tractor services help build on local resilience and improve livelihoods · Improve livestock farming for income and manure whether as assets or social processes. Pro-poor interven- for farming. tions seem to abound, showing that the interest of the · Loans for women to ensure profitable non-farm poor was prime in the deliberations as many community activities. members recognize the debilitating effect of fending for poorer relatives. Making services available, providing Community actions/strategies that need urgent atten- scientific and technical help, and building capacity tion and support in the transition community are: through micro-finance are key components of any community intervention with regard to climate · Irrigation to enhance farming and maintain the two vulnerability. rain regimes. · Financial support to enable necessary investments K Ey CO N C L U Si O N S FrO m F iE Ld W Or K in farm and other activities. · Create a platform to share ideas between elders, the Livelihoods and Climate Change Adaptation youth, and government experts on best local farm- ing practices and how to adapt to weather Adaptation to climate change within the various liveli- variability. hood systems in each agroecological zone constitutes an · Improve water and sanitation facilities such as bore- important means to obtaining sustainable livelihoods. holes and pipe borne water. Both ex ante and ex post strategies are used by people of different socioeconomic status. The investment Community actions/strategies that need urgent atten- required to carry out any adaptation determines to a tion and support in the forest community are: large extent whether it will be put in place to guard against climate impacts, or whether people will wait · Provision of agrochemicals for both cocoa and food until hit by a climate-induced hazard before adopting crops. the strategy. The wealthy can easily invest in anticipa- · Incentives to encourage tree planting and protection tory or proactive adaptation strategies--such as wells of biodiversity. and pumping machines for irrigation--as noted in the · Construction of the community's access road. northern savannah sites and coastal areas. Due to wide- · Harnessing of underground water. spread poverty and the variable nature of climate, many · Financial facilities to support livelihoods of the people are sensitive to climate-related shocks, which poor. result in ex-post coping and adaptation. Adaptation · The settlers agreed that there is a need for training responses to climate change are disaggregated by the for fishermen, fishmongers, and farmers on new type of livelihood strategy used by various categories of techniques to adopt within their chosen careers to people. Adapting the livelihood activity to specific enhance their businesses. climate shocks in order to avoid failure of livelihoods is 36 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A the major option pursued. The popular adaptation strat- defined by patriarchal and gendered norms of each soci- egies range from livelihood diversification, adapting to ety. The relevance of most traditional norms, practices, planting dates, and changes in crops planted. The and institutions to modern trends is beginning to be increasing diversification of livelihoods, especially questioned. The challenge is how to adapt these in line among women, is particularly relevant in meeting with principles of fairness, equity, and basic rights, while climate challenges. In all the zones, women were the at the same time maintaining authority capable of first to absorb the environmental fallout from climate ensuring the smooth functioning of society in terms of change by diversifying from natural-resource-based good governance. activities into non-farm activities, especially trading. Farming is no longer the main livelihood source for Gender people in rural areas. Multiple livelihoods are important in all the zones as a realistic adaptation strategy. Vulnerability is higher among women than men due to However, the number of activities used by an individual inheritance rules and land tenure relations. The patriar- should not be interpreted as correlated to high adaptive chal system of Ghanaian society limits access patterns capacity. In some instances, a single livelihood strategy of women to productive resources and in some instances by a resilient household is more useful than a sensitive social justice. In the Guinea savannah, women tradition- household struggling between jobs. ally only assisted with farming rather than being considered farmers in their own right due to the taboo Axes of Social vulnerability and Social Exclusion on womens' ownership of land. Similarly, in the transi- tion and forest zone, even though the matrilineal system Vulnerability to climate change is not uniform, but enables some amount of female access to land, male differs according to the sociocultural axes of a society. siblings are given priority over their female counter- Social differentiation and access to resources--as parts. The emerging commodification of land tenure enabled by both formal and informal institutions-- relations is a good sign for women, as they now partici- accounts for the differential adaptations people face in pate on an equal basis as their male counterparts, as their communities. The nature of the inheritance seen in the example of the forest zone above. But even system, governance systems, and land tenure relations in this case, years of subordination of women means are important in this regard. Socioeconomic processes that they cannot compete on the same level as men, lead to the exclusion of some people from mainstream who already have some access to social networks, assets, society. Climate-enhanced social exclusion is increasing, and financing. In the southern part of the country, more as evidenced by the increasing number of "environmen- women than men are becoming environmentally vulner- tal refugees" generated by each climate hazard. The able since they cultivate small parcels of land and northern floods of 2007 created a large number of depend on non-timber forest resources, which are dwin- socially excluded refugees, as the social capital in dling with the changing climate. This explains the communities is often based on reciprocity rather than higher rate of diversification among women than men. on pity or traditional rights. If you happen to fall into In northern Ghana, there are more men in single-liveli- the asset-less category, you invariably become socially hood activities than women, who now also own small excluded as people form alliances where they can also parcels of land for vegetable or groundnut cultivation in be supported when they are in need. Coastal communi- addition to natural-resource-based off-farm activities ties face a similar fate as their homes are now sitting on such as shea nut, dawadawa, and fuelwood gathering. inundated coastlines that destroy their livelihood assets. The inability to diversify due to ill health and lack of Ethnicity and migrant Status investment capital leads to social exclusion. Though it is possible to access land and off-farm income in the The nature of vulnerability among migrants and differ- forest zone, being sick or physically weak--such as from ent ethnic groups is changing in Ghana. Migrants used old age and high dependency burdens--leads to high to suffer discrimination and were more vulnerable than vulnerability with poor adaptive capacity. Social vulner- indigenes. However, with the commodification of land ability is a function of social processes and relations in the forest zones, migrants with sufficient financial d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 37 resources and human capital are actually better off than permits or extort rents, making many migrants in poor their non-landowning indigene counterparts. As noted slums exposed to all kinds of vulnerabilities. Similarly, in the results, most landowners and chiefs charge as petty traders in the villages with poor clientele--due to much as 40ghc for leasing an acre of land. This is far high levels of self-provisioning and low purchasing above the ability of poor indigenes, especially women. power--makes these groups vulnerable. However, it is Most migrants start by working as agricultural laborers; not merely a category that determines one's livelihood saving money enables them to rent their own lands. outcomes, but the enabling processes--such as ease of Also, the new system of "share-land-cropping" rather access, relations with family members, societal expecta- than the well-known sharecropping system, which used tions, formal rules and mechanisms, and above all polit- to disadvantage migrants, now enables them to own ical capital. Among women traders, some are very rich, land over some years when tree crops reach maturity while others are poor. What level of support do they get and they are given a third of the farm as compensation. from their spouses, community, and financial institu- This practice is currently in vogue in the western region tions? And what idiosyncratic constraints do each face? of Ghana. In the rest of the forest and transition zone, Holistically, groups face similar problems and opportu- migrants still constitute the vulnerable group as they are nities, but sustainable livelihoods are outcomes of idio- opposed to social practices that limit their progress. syncratic circumstances. Migration introduces the factor of ethnicity as migrants become minorities in the destination areas. However, Typologies of vulnerable Groups and driving ethnicity in itself does not pose new vulnerability chal- Factors lenges, except those presented by location. Typologies of vulnerable groups are identified at indi- Occupational Grouping vidual and group levels. The main categories of vulnera- ble groups include widows, disabled, aged, children, Natural-resource-based activities are more prone to youth, and divorced women. These vulnerable groups climate-related vulnerability than non-farm activities. depend on other people or on single livelihood strate- Hence, rural areas tend to be more vulnerable than gies that do not procure the necessary basket of goods urban areas because over 90 percent of rural residents and services for survival. They lack the major resources depend on rainfed agriculture and the harvesting of needed for maintaining sustainable livelihoods and are non-timber resources for food, herbs, shelter, etc. normally at risk of losing the little they have to climate- Unfortunately for rural dwellers, the failure of farming induced hazards. The survival of these groups is contin- is invariably linked to the failure of nature-based gent on dwindling social support systems, both resources, such as forest products, grassland resources, traditional and modern. In urban areas, the poor with- and water resources. Poor rainfall in the savannah out adequate shelter and jobs constitute the most affects both pasture for livestock production and wild vulnerable group. In coastal settings, poor fisherfolks fruits, which women depend on for income. Likewise, living close to the shoreline constitute the most vulnera- this impact reduces fresh supplies of food for fish in ble. And in the farming communities in all ecological lakes and rivers, thereby affecting fisherfolk. zones, the poorest landless farmers, especially women, Non-natural-resource-based activities now offer better are the most vulnerable. At the individual level factors prospects, as globalization enabled by the country's such as age, disability, gender, and governance explain macroeconomic policy direction has made informal the risks of exposure and magnitude of impact. The sector trading activities more profitable. Among the low aged who are abandoned by their poor kin are vulnera- earners, traders in food crops are better off than farmers, ble. Children in poor families in the absence of state while traders in imported commodities are joining the shelters are vulnerable, as they are malnourished and mass of the urban middle class. However, there is a uneducated. The disabled are often perceived as a growing lower underclass of petty traders in both rural burden on families and society and may be left on their and urban areas, as typified by the poor in Nima. The own. Traditional governance systems may malfunction low investments in poor yielding activities are often due to commercialization of values that leads to the located in places where urban institutions refuse to give exercise of perverse political capital and disenfranchises 38 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A people of their assets, thereby exposing them to climate rates to the national health insurance by rural agricul- contingencies. The failure of the state to put in place turalists is a major problem. Given the fact that both safety nets or the rent-seeking behavior of disaster orga- NGOs and state institutions are cash-strapped, the best nizations may allow people to fall into structural way of making these institutions useful in building the vulnerability. adaptive capacity of communities would be to collabo- rate and integrate their functions rather than the ad Urban and rural Livelihoods and pro-poor hoc and piecemeal services they currently provide. Also, Adaptation formal institutions need to work with informal institu- tions, which mostly regulate landed property. Here the The relationship between the rural and the urban is role of education and persuasion is important. becoming more complex than hitherto imagined by Modernization has led to the perversion of most infor- development theory. There is a flux between urban and mal traditional institutions that need correction. Moral rural due to migration and the exchange of resources persuasion is important in this regard, but it should be between the two. In addition, urbanized norms now done without incurring the displeasure of the powerful pervade rural areas as monetization and commodifica- in society, who can subvert institutions to the disadvan- tion transform rural social relations. Renting of land at tage of the poor. exorbitant rates is a reflection of these trends. Pro-poor adaptation strategies need to build on existing practices External influences: market integration and policy that straddle the two divides. The era of the rural being regimes associated with farming and urban with industry is eroding. Good practices in urban and rural areas that The degree of vulnerability of the communities isn't just ensure efficiency in resource utilization and survival are related to their internal inadequacies, but also to the adopted and adapted in both environments. Circular external political, social, and economic systems at the migration has become an important adaptation strategy regional, national, and global levels. The biophysical that enables people to adopt a range of livelihood activ- environment alone does not define the vulnerability of ities and learn skills that are used to mitigate the people since they are not insulated from the effects of impacts of climate-related hazards and enhance adap- globalization and policies that affect services. The tive capacity. Public adaptation strategies--such as dependence on the market for selling their products and provision of wells, boreholes, road infrastructure, procuring basic necessities of life defines the livelihood processing equipment, land tenure administration outcomes even after nature has awarded them with their reform, and educational campaigns on climate-related harvest. In addition, the ability to diversify into non- risks--should be aimed at the poorest and most vulner- farm activities depends on macroeconomic policy. able groups. Ghana's neo-liberal regime has imposed hardships on the agricultural population and opened up new oppor- role of Formal and informal institutions tunities in informal sector activities. Even in rural areas, the informal trade sector is making significant contribu- Both formal and informal institutions have an impor- tions to the lives of women. The external dependence of tant role in mitigating climate change and enhancing the country on global networks of trade obviously has the adaptive capacity of communities. Social services its own set of drawbacks,, as seen with the recent food are important in determining the internal resistance of price hikes that reduced many poor urban households communities to climate hazards. There is poor provi- into structural poverty. Market integration is not neces- sion of education, health, infrastructure, and aid sarily bad, as seen by the emphasis on cocoa production response in all the communities. Indirect impacts of that lifted many families in the forest out of poverty. climate change--such as diseases and polluted water-- This example points to the fact that programs directed are difficult to handle in district hospitals, while the at a wider agricultural rejuvenation and the non-farm village water committees whose manpower, equipment, sector would increase the adaptive capacity of rural and financial requirements are hardly met cannot Ghana, which currently bears the brunt of policy provide adequate and safe water. The poor subscription regimes. 39 5. pArTiCipATOry SCENAriO revised workshop structure that incorporated results from the previous ones. In each of these workshops, day dEvELOpmENT (pSd) WOrKShOp 1 started by outlining the key elements and the objec- rESULTS tives of the workshop to the participants. Three of the exercises--developing a vision of the future, subjecting p S d W Or KS hO pS : dES iGN OvErvi E W the vision to climate and socioeconomic impacts, and identifying adaptation options--were done on day 1. An important aspect of this applied research program is On the second day, participants outlined adaptation to determine how different groups of stakeholders view pathways and prioritized them in terms of short, the range of possible adaptation options open to them, medium and long terms. and what forms of public policy or investment support are needed to facilitate effective autonomous adaptation. In the national workshops, participants were divided To facilitate this, participatory scenario development into groups based on their interests and knowledge of (PSD) workshops were designed for multiple stakehold- ers, including local experts and representatives of social groups particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. The workshops provided a participatory FiGUrE 3. KEy ELEmENTS OF pSd forum for "future visioning" and then mapping out alternative, robust adaptation pathways that combine a WOrKShOp dESiGN variety of adaptation options in plausible sequences. Each of these alternative pathways, in turn, is likely to Introduction have different implications both for the overall costs of and context setting adaptation and for the distribution of costs and benefits among groups within society. The PSD Workshop Reporting Develop vision of the Design followed a series of steps as illustrated in Figure back from future groups and Engagement 3. Each new session was preceded by a presentation by discuss and the facilitator in order to put the exercise into perspec- Participation tive. The PSD workshops were organized at two levels, Challenge namely national and regional (zone) levels. Based on Spell out vision with lessons from the first national-level workshop with adaptation Identify boundary pathways adaptation conditions regard to time constraints, both the regional and the /coping second national PSD workshops were redesigned for options one-and-a-half days instead of the initial one day (Appendix 8). The second national workshop saw a 40 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A the zones--namely the northern savannah zone, the facing is important for planning future development transition zone, the forest zone, and the coastal savan- and designing policies for building adaptive capacity nah zone--with the help of facilitators. In the regional and identifying potential future challenges. Table 7 workshops, each group was constituted such that it outlines the issues and challenges of three sociogeo- represented the diverse stakeholders who were in atten- graphic zones as identified during the regional work- dance. The stakeholders at the regional workshops shops. The following summary details the areas of included livelihood groups, mainly comprising farmers concern: and fishermen, officials from local government institu- tions, and civil society groups. Participants were encour- · Rapid depletion of natural resources, especially riv- aged to vision along the identified themes and any ers, forest, and land. others they deemed important to their zones, such as · Increased number and severity of disasters in the energy, education, health, land management, local last decade (droughts and floods). governance, food security, and social cohesion. · Significant erosion, especially in the coastal areas, which has impacts on cultivated land, housing, and Before discussions by participants, there were presenta- infrastructure. tions on current climate change challenges and their · Increased incidence of diseases such as sexually impacts and existing adaptations in Ghana. Participants transmitted diseases, malaria, and other waterborne produced their visions and subjected these to climate diseases coupled with limited health care services. and other socioeconomic impacts. The essence here was · Loss of soil fertility as a result of overuse and to estimate the extent to which identified impacts will unsustainable agricultural practices. inhibit the smooth attainment of the visions. The · Increasing vulnerability of livelihoods that rely groups then identified adaptation options that will miti- heavily on the environment; for example, agricul- gate the adverse impacts of climate change, focusing on ture is highly sensitive to fluctuations in tempera- vulnerable groups. Clusters of adaptation options were ture and rainfall, especially subsistence and rainfed developed into adaptation pathways prioritized into agriculture. short (2010­15), medium (2015­30), and long-term · Trees are being cut indiscriminately, leading to neg- (year 2030­50) periods. This final exercise took the ative impacts on local livelihoods and biodiversity, participants into plenary, where each group reported as well as exacerbating the effects of drought, ero- back on their findings, thus concluding the workshop. sion, and bush fires. · Rapid and uncoordinated urbanization. Ov E rvi EW OF rESULTS F rOm LOC A L A Nd · Increasing rates of migration ­ lack of basic ser- N AT iONAL WO rKS hOp S vices, income poverty, unemployment, underem- ployment, and limited access to resources, including This section combines the outcomes of two national food, water, and shelter. PSD workshops completed in Accra in June and October (Bizikova and Baily 2009), plus the outcomes The major groups that are impacted by the identified of three regional PSD workshops completed in development challenges--and who are also sensitive to September (Ahiable and Salam 2009). We first present impacts and /or that have low capacities to respond to the current direct and indirect challenges created by changes--included food-crop farmers, especially in climate change and variability, then we provide the rain-fed areas; fisherfolk; people in flood-prone areas; visions for each zone and the nation as a whole, and and migrants, mostly living in slums of greater Accra. finally the climate and other related threats to achieving Participants also identified groups considered vulnera- this vision as perceived by the participants. ble because of their social situation, regardless of impacts of changing climate, including widows, the Overview of the Current Situation handicapped, women who don't own land, and people living in places with weak social networks and Understanding the current situation and current chal- conflict-prone zones, especially in the northern lenges the different sociogeographic zones in Ghana are regions. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 41 TABLE 7. OvErviEW OF CUrrENT SOCiOECONOmiC iSSUES iN ThrEE SOCiOGEOGrAphiC ZONES iN GhANA Transition Zone Coastal Zone Savannah Zone · Rapid and massive depletion of natural · there is a decrease in fishing stock in · increase in population size resulting in resources, especially forests, rivers, and the sea as fishermen continuously slums land experience decreasing harvest · Erratic weather condition · the existence and practice of old · massive coastal erosion has taken away · droughts, floods, and other weather- methods of farming among some farmers most of the land and coastal related shocks/disasters has increased · disasters over the last 10 years have communities; this has also resulted in a · increase in the length of the hunger gap. increased, with more severity reduction in coconut stock along the · migration has taken a different dimension · Unequal resource distribution between coast, which is a major livelihood with women migrating more than men; the urban and the rural centers, resulting resource there is also an increase in child migration in increased rural-urban migration, child · massive sea and river pollution as a and child trafficking trafficking result of lack of toilet facilities within · Agricultural farm lands becoming poorer in · Unplanned urban cities and towns households and inadequate sanitation nutrients as a result of overuse of farm · overreliance and overexploitation of facilities within communities land without replenishing lost nutrients forest resources, resulting in the rapidly · there is evidence of malnutrition among · drastic reduction in vegetation cover accelerating loss of plant and animal children along the coast as a greater · pressure on land has resulted in people species proportion of the fish is sold to raise shifting to lands not demarcated for · the bondage between man and the money, with very little reserved for agricultural purposes for crop cultivation environment that existed long ago is families · loss of agricultural lands for massive broken, as people now have little or no · incidence of disease--such as sexually construction and mining projects passion for the environment transmitted diseases and other weather- · diversion of food crop lands into related diseases such as malaria and cultivation of crops such as jatrofa, which other water borne diseases--has is threatening food security increased · increase in pockets of poverty · increase in natural resource livelihood- dependant activity Source: regional/Zone pSd Workshop (2009) The results indicate serious direct and indirect climatic workshops, participants were encouraged to focus on threats to livelihoods in all sociogeographic zones and vulnerable people. The identified future priorities impacts on the general development of the nation as a included improvements in resilience among the poor by whole. The burdens of these emerging and intensifying improving basic living conditions such as improved threats are disproportionately distributed depending on access to health care and health insurance, safe water, the level of sensitivity and resilience of different occupa- and affordable energy. tional, social, and gender groups, as shown in the last section. The participants anticipated increased competition over different types of land uses between agriculture and Future development priorities forestry, specialization in planted species, and increases in farm sizes. Further, not only changes in agricultural Based on the current climate challenges enumerated production and infrastructure development were impor- above, the participants defined the visions and goals for tant elements of future visions, but also changes in land, the future based on a realistic assessment of the water, and natural resource management and governance strengths, potentials, and weaknesses/threats present. systems. This included sustainable land use manage- When identifying adaptation options, it is important to ment for diverse purposes such as mining, logging, agri- consider future development priorities in order to culture, secure tenure, and democratic control of land, explore synergies between responses to climate change including gender balance in access to power and and the desired development pathway. To better under- resources. Strengthening democratic governance and stand long-term development priorities, the first activity access to resources, supported with capacity building was focused on creating a desired development pathway and training activities, were recognized as key elements for each zone. During the development of the future for exploring future opportunities outlined in the vision in both the national and regional-level visions. 42 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A TABLE 8. FUTUrE viSiONS FOr EACh ZONE FrOm NATiONAL WOrKShOp National Sector Forest Transition Northern Coastal livelihood · Better food security · improved access to · increased · Alternative livelihoods support systems specialization in for fisheries farming (rice and · Adaptation of new maize) technologies in relevant · increased access to sectors, including market fishing land and Water · sustainable land-use · increased efficiency · more irrigation basin · Enhanced irrigation management management of water resource development through water (mining, logging, use · sustainable water harvesting agriculture) · increase in timber resource management · gender balance in · secure tenure plantations and less · intensified livestock access to resources · social and deforestation production democratic control of land · integrated water resource management governance, institutions, · strong intersectoral · increased capacity · savannah accelerated · Education and capacity and participation linkages and of technocrats and development authority building to create coordination experts persists relevant skilled labor to · incentives and · more balanced · Urbanization ­ growth fit the job market alternatives for development (urban centers in region · development of efficient behavioral change and rural) to avoid · public transfers to poor early warning system increased via safety nets urbanization Sources: pSd ii (2009). Table 8 presents the future visions for the different using the resources and opportunities in each zone is zones elicited during the national workshops. Specific key to achieving the millennium development goals and priorities identified for each zone included issues ensuring environmental sustainability. Improved liveli- focused on agricultural development, such as maintain- hood well-being is directly related to efficient manage- ing current-level production using organic practices and ment of land and water resources, which are threatened increasing farm sizes in the transition and northern by climate change and variability. In order to achieve savannah zones. In the forest zone, the importance of sustainable livelihoods, the governance of natural biodiversity protection was identified along with support resources is of prime importance. These need to be for improved land management practices. The need to addressed by both traditional and state institutions manage migration was a key concern to both sending responsible for the management of political, social, and and receiving areas. Sending areas want the deprivation economic spheres of society. that pushes people to migrate to be addressed, while receiving areas called for both a reduction in migration Current and future impacts of changing climate and and provision of infrastructure and improvement of live- variability lihood conditions. Also, improving the conditions of women's livelihoods was a key focus considered to have In general, climate impacts in Ghana will differ from multiple benefits for general development in all sectors. the northern savannah zone to the coastal areas in the south. Table 9 summarizes key elements of the future visions showing multiple desires that are best achieved by The northern savannah zone is expected to be mostly improvement in livelihoods, land and water manage- affected by the increased occurrence of drought. ment, and improving governance and institutional Similarly, the rest of the country is expected to experi- structures. Improving the livelihoods of households ence increased variability of precipitation and hotter d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 43 TABLE 9. KEy ELEmENTS OF ThE FUTUrE viSiONS FOr GhANA Issues/sectors National priorities livelihood · improved safe water supply · Access to credit · improved access to basic services including health care and school · Access to clean affordable energy · Reduced outmigration to south land and Water · maintain land for agriculture management · Biodiversity conservation · Reduced rate of deforestation · sustainable water resource management · community-based land management systems and secure tenure governance, institutions, · planned urban development and participation · more balanced development (urban and rural) to avoid increased urbanization · Balanced land management for different purposes (mining, logging, agriculture) · strong intersectoral linkages and coordination · incentives and alternatives for behavioral change · Education and capacity-building to create relevant skilled labor to fit the job market · development of efficient early warning system Source: regional/Zone pSd Workshop & pSd ii (2009) temperatures. Most of the coastal regions are susceptible attainability of future visions (including available to tidal flooding and sea erosion. Table 10 outlines resources) and create further stress, especially on already major climatic impacts by zones in Ghana. The indirect fragile natural and human systems. Major impacts effects of climate change are enormous in all zones. Of include decreases in yields and fluctuation in crop immediate concern is the migration triggered by climate production, increased risk due to agricultural specializa- change. This reduces land pressure in northern Ghana tion, decreases in fish productivity and species disap- and increases production pressure in the transition and pearance, and increased soil degradation. Groups forest and coastal urban areas, with consequences such highlighted increases in vulnerability of the poor due to as land tenure conflicts, resource degradation, and slum climate change caused, for example, by decreased water development. availability and quality, which would create a burden on women, increase the occurrence of diseases and related Based on these impacts, participants indentified a mortality, decrease food and income security, and number of specific climatic impacts that could affect the threaten livelihoods dependent on forestry and fishing. TABLE 10. mAjOr pAST/prOjECTEd CLimATiC impACTS By ZONES iN GhANA Zones Major Climate Change Impacts northern savannah increased occurrence of drought less rain, and also highly variable precipitation often causing flooding of communities in river basins consider also significant increase in wind speed potentially causing health problems (dust) transitional decreasing amount and increasing variations in rainfall and increasing temperature consider forest and land degradation because of climate change impacts forest decreasing rainfall and increased variability of precipitation on food and exports crops high humidity and high temperatures that will be harmful to agriculture and sectors consider migration from other zones coastal savannah dry climate with increasing rainfall variability and hotter temperatures sea erosion and tidal flooding consider these impacts on poor people (in slums) Source: pSd i (2009). 44 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Finally, migration and increasing social tensions were Migration leads to the increasing concentration of identified as potential social impacts of climate change, populations in slums, potentially causing further vulner- especially in the coastal savannah, northern savannah, abilities; increasing incidences of diseases; unemploy- and transition zones. ment; limited availability and access to basic services; increased pressure on infrastructure; and finally, loss of Table 11 also shows the main key impacts identified by labor in the out-migration areas. In addition, surplus participants based on the provided information about labor in receiving areas has led to exploitation and future climate projections and observed trends. Basically, increased involvement of children in productive all impacts are perceived as negative with consequences activities such as reduction in human welfare and environmental sustainability. Reduced water stress is the pivotal chal- Climate change impacts are often enhanced by lack of lenge around which all other impacts emanate. It affects proper infrastructure, leading to increasing incidence of agriculture; water availability to domestic, energy, and vector diseases, especially malaria, which affects produc- industry sectors; floristic life; temperatures; and eventu- tivity of people in the suburbs of Accra. In the rest of ally the decision to migrate. the country, flooding could lead to loss of infrastructure such as roads, irrigation systems, and human settle- According to the participants, these impacts are felt ments. Floods could also have negative impacts on crop most by subsistence farmers planting mostly cassava and production and livestock, causing negative impacts on plantain, and to some extent cash crop farmers growing food security. cocoa and coffee. Farmers practicing monoculture (which seems to be the current trend for cash crops) Some impacts are unique to each geographical zone due have their production levels and profits in jeopardy due to their different physical and socioeconomic character- to climate variability. There is a reduction in interest in istics. Climate change impacts and consequences are agriculture among youths, which has led to migration directly linked to unique geographical conditions, becoming a cross-cutting issue affecting all agroecologi- specific social vulnerabilities, and to specific sectors. cal zones, with significant consequences for the receiv- Serious impacts were indentified in urban and peri- ing areas in urban and agricultural frontier zones. urban areas in Greater Accra in the coastal zone, TABLE 11. ArEAS OF hiGh impACTS ANd ThEir CONSEqUENCES Key impacts Consequences of these impacts Reduced water availability · fluctuation in cereal and root crop outputs (cassava, plantain and cash crops: cocoa and coffee) and droughts leading to less revenue, less food for storage, malnutrition, food insecurity, and migration · migration ­ increased population in slums, pressure on infrastructure, social services, loss of labor in the out-migration areas soil degradation · loss of land for crop cultivation and reduction of soil fertility and crop yields Wild fires · forest degradation, loss of biodiversity, loss of property, ghg emissions; could be worsened by, or caused by, charcoal burning, high biomass, and construction flood · settlements and farm land and crop production are affected · Reduced access to markets ­ no way of getting the products to market, loss of revenues, farmers are discouraged subsequently, increased poverty coastal Erosion · salinization, land degradation, loss of settlements and agricultural land for production; impacts on coastal areas with higher population densities occurrence of diseases · spread of diseases such as cholera, malaria, guinea worm, diarrhea leading to loss of man-hours, stress on health facilities, and economy as whole · livestock diseases and pests changes in fish availability · Reduced fish catch, changes in fish species, undermining of livelihoods of fisherfolk Source: pSdii (2009) d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 45 especially for areas such as coastal flooding and erosion, · Options are familiar, because they build on past soil salinization, saltwater intrusion to freshwater, and experiences. loss of settlements. These are associated with potential · There is political will and leadership to support the increases in disease and food insecurity, related to options. increasing migration and the growing concentration of · Costs of doing nothing and experiencing impacts people in poor living conditions. are higher than costs of adaptation. Impacts of climate change on agricultural production At both the regional and national levels, the need to and water availability with direct consequences on food improve well-being for the current generation and those security were listed for both the northern savannah and of the future underlie the different adaptation options the transition zones. Increasing food insecurity is also presented for adoption and support. Trade-offs between attributed to increasing soil exploitation, poor farming different options depended on vulnerability conditions practices, limited food storage, and food processing of zone and individuals and the output/outcomes of the opportunities. Also, the potential impact of climate adaptation option. People would choose options that change on fish populations was identified as significant their resource entitlements allow, while at the same time in the transition zone among fishing communities, examining those with optimum benefits. Also, adapta- where most of the local fishermen have limited access to tion options are laden with conflicts as the deployment other sources of income. of any action can increase the threats or impacts in other sectors or experienced by other people. A placed- The above threats from climate change and variability, based analysis of the impact of adaptation options and also from the vulnerability of the zones, present become an important criteria. Participants were particu- challenges to achieving the visions. In order to achieve larly concerned by the use of migration as an option the visions, considerable efforts need to be put in place which ends up creating further threats in both sending to reduce the impacts or internalize the externality and receiving areas. through adaptation and mitigation strategies. A dA p TATi O N O p T iO N S: K E y SE C TOr A L range of Stakeholders and Key preference Criteria T hEm E S for Options General Adaptation Options In the national workshops, participants came from government sector ministries, educational and research Adaptation entails a process by which measures and institutions, and civil society groups. The regional behaviors to prevent, moderate, cope with, and take workshops were composed of stakeholders from advantage of the consequences of climate events are different livelihood groups, mainly comprising farmers planned, enhanced, developed, and implemented and fishermen, officials from local government institu- (UNDP 2005; IPCC 2001). Building on the identified tions, and environment and water-related civil society future visions and impacts of climate change, the groups groups. identified and characterized adaptation options for each zone based on existing and proactive measures. They During the final stages of the workshop, there was a distinguished between overall changes and restructuring brief discussion about the key criteria that need to be in the sectors toward sustainability and specific applied to choose and prioritize adaptation options. The measures to improve the situation of vulnerable people. participants identified the following list of criteria: Participants indentified changes in the farming systems that included changes in planted species (choosing · Options create other benefits on people's lives, early-maturing, drought-resistant crops and trees), crop especially poverty reduction. diversification, and adoption of new technologies as · Feasibility of the options, including availability of existing and effective options needed in farming zones. needed human resources. Identified changes in agriculture are reflections of · Options promote sustainable practices. impacts of climate change on water availability and soil 46 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A degradation. Participants suggested improving irrigation opportunities and skills training, especially for people infrastructure, especially with a focus on diversified depending on fisheries and agricultural production who water storage and small-scale irrigation systems, as well will diversify in the near future. The suggested adapta- as increases in water efficiency, rainwater harvesting, tion options reflect the importance of a holistic adapta- and groundwater recharge. This would also require tion strategy. improvements in infrastructure planning and develop- ment in areas such as transportation to ensure market Social Services: health and Education access. There is a connection between production-related Moving beyond specific adaptation actions in agricul- vulnerability due to climate and other environmental ture and irrigation, the participants expressed the need threats to the inability of the poor to access health, for changes in water and land governance. This would education, and other social services. The other side of require moving toward more integrated watershed- the equation is the poor, inadequate, and expensive based management of water resources. The participants services provided by the state. Poor output by a farmer were also concerned with negative impacts of current implies poor nutrition and exposure to malnutrition, land tenure on capacities for adaptation. They which translates into low income that is incapable of suggested that as a precondition for increasing capaci- paying for health and education. Inability to access ties for adaptation, secure land tenure and community- these services produces negative feedbacks to adaptive based land administration systems (democratic control) capacity. The stress on health and education is seen in should be put in place. Finally, identified responses to Table 13, which sequences adaptation measures from climate change were also focused on improving the the short term to the long term. Participants considered situation of poor people (see Table 12). Furthermore, options such as social protection, social services, and they also emphasized the need for assistance in devel- safety nets as high-cost options exceeding resources oping alternative and additional livelihood available in current budgets in all analyzed zones. TABLE 12. KEy CLimATiC impACTS ANd AdApTATiON ACTiONS FOCUSEd ON pOTENTiALLy vUL- NErABLE GrOUpS Zone Climate Impacts Adaptation Options northern savannah · increased morbidity and disease · strengthening traditional social security support systems prevalence · strengthening public healthcare delivery and preventive care · increased vulnerability of the poor · targeted social transfers and safety nets · increased outmigration loss of · increased investment in urban social services and infrastructure human capital transition · increased demand ­ water, energy · public-private partnership in service provision and basic services · increased capacity building for experts and technocrats · decreased income security for · develop early warning systems and awareness raising people in fish industry · promotion of conflict management mechanisms · increased outmigration · provision of social safety nets for communities and migrants · increased food insecurity · develop alternative and additional livelihoods · threats to forest-based livelihood · potential conflicts and social tensions forest · decreased food security · improvement of social services to poor people · pressure on land · security of tenure · community-based land administration system coastal savannah · decreased water availability and · Recycling and total rain water harvesting quality · improvement in formal and informal safety net · higher burden on women · social protection for immigrants · increased migration · skills training · increased measles · Economic diversification in secondary towns · increased cholera · increased accessibility of health care · Education and awareness rising-health issues Sources: pSd ii (2009). d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 47 TABLE 13. AdApTATiON rESpONSES--SOCiAL: hEALTh SErviCES ANd EdUCATiON Short-term Medium-term Long-term Current issues 2010­15 2015­30 2030­50 limited social services improvement in health services including migrants in the social further development of social safety nets policies limited access to health supporting social nets services for resettled displaced safety nets for communities services people and immigrants increasing concentration of supporting social nets Alternative skill training for managing social tensions and people in urban areas programs for areas of migrants conflicts outmigration Education and skill training development Source: pSd ii (2009). However, these are necessary to rid the current struc- require decentralization of government authority, tural vulnerability in which many rural farmers and strengthening of civil society, engaging traditional urban poor find themselves. authorities in planning, and building on existing plat- forms for community engagement. Water management, Agriculture, and Social Security Table 14 shows the importance of water management, The improvement in governance of water resources by modernization of agriculture, managed migration, and moving toward sustainable and integrated management social safety nets as adaptation options in improving of water resources is strongly linked to agricultural livelihoods across the board. The role of research production and other measures dealing with livelihood institutions is important as they need to come out improvements. The overall improvements in the with socially and economically appropriate designs, enforcement of laws and regulations, increasing skills methods, inputs, and evaluation and monitoring and capacities of personnel, and incentive/payment systems to enable adaptation in each sector that elimi- options for environmental services are important nates adaptation deficits and ensures win-win measures to combat climate change threats. This would scenarios. TABLE 14. AdApTATiON rESpONSES: WATEr mANAGEmENT, AGriCULTUrE, ANd SOCiAL SECUriTy Short-term Medium-term Long-term Current actions 2010­15 2015­30 2030­50 local water harvesting increasing the extent of current programs on water harvesting programs of water harvesting flood proof roads and railways Rainwater harvesting (run off are already a priority small-scale water harvesting to ensure market access for the capture) and building dams programs (household products changes in planted crops community) Building dams for irrigation market research and product (small scale community migration to urban areas post harvest management development support management dams) (silos, food banks, training to learn ways processing) developing crops and livestock social safety nets and food that are pest and drought banks to elevate significant Access to microcredit resistant, early yielding and impacts on food production culturally acceptable land-tenure security (including access to land for women) Source: pSd ii (2009). 48 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Ad A p TAT i ON pAT hWAyS of sustainable and integrated resource management practices, such as integrated soil and water resource Sequencing and Leveraging among Options management. These actions also include development of needed capacities and training activities. With regard to sequencing adaptation pathways (See Tables 13 and 14 above), developing and strengthening Finally, moving toward sustainable and integrated early warning systems, climate education and advocacy, resources management and improving social policies and capacity building for government officials and tech- and protections are the key suggested actions for the nocrats were identified as short-term actions. In agricul- longer time frame after 2020. Social policies include ture and fisheries, the short-term activities included both improving the status of the local communities and promoting changes in agriculture to plant drought- also addressing the potentially growing number of resistant species and assistance for changes in fisheries immigrants between zones in the country and probably sectors that will be significantly impacted in the future. from other countries as well. Actions that could improve social safety nets and health extensions were identified as short-term actions in the In the short term, low-cost adaptation options involving coastal savannah zone. For the forest zone, ensuring building on existing best practices in each ecological democratic control over land and secure land tenure zone is the norm (Table 15). were identified as major short-term priorities. However, high-cost measures are recommended for the Adaptation options that were identified over medium- coastal zone since the severity of impacts there demand term time horizons included actions needed to move more "hard" adaptation measures, which are usually toward changes in agricultural production, including expensive. In the medium term, the progress in institu- enrichment planting and promoting activities that tional integration would enable a wider reach and create added value and improved agricultural processing; consolidation of efforts. Hopefully, the initial individual support for innovative technologies; and strategic short-term proactive adaptations would build individual reserves development and the introduction capacities and enable organizations promoting TABLE 15. OvErviEW OF AdApTATiON pAThWAyS FOr GhANA By TimE hOriZON ANd By ZONE Time horizon Northern Savannah Transition Forest Coastal Savannah 2009­2012 short-term · Early warning systems · Education · security of tenure · safety nets actions · Agricultural · Early warning systems · drought-resistant · health extensions diversification: · Awareness raising crops and trees · fishery assistance research, promotion, · capacity building for · Revising and adapting adoption technocrats fishery regulation · Adaptive technology and services 2012­2020 · strategic reserves · investment and · Enrichment; planting · Recycling and development promotion of · Added value and improved water · strengthening the innovative improved agricultural catching national disaster technologies processing · training off-farm management · integrated water employment organisation nAdmo resource management, · integrated soil and · social services small-scale irrigation water management 2020­2030­2050 · social protection · sustainable land · integrated water · Water resource management resource management, management, including · social policies ­ safety small-scale irrigation diversification nets for communities and immigrants, managing social tensions and conflicts Source: pSd i (2009). d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 49 innovations to modernize agriculture, improve water some strategies will require trade-offs due to cost collection, provide social services, and implement work- implications and conflicts. We consider the key ones able insurance schemes. In the medium term, it is antic- identified above. ipated the initial focus on reducing structural vulnerability would reduce the number of the vulnerable The construction of roads ensures market access and and enable organizations such as NADMO to specifi- opening up of areas for effective resource management. cally target the most vulnerable with programs that This is regarded as an important action that would have build resilience. Most infrastructural developments are growing significance over time on livelihoods, though a anticipated to be consolidated in the medium term to very costly option. Roads reduce the cost of production, long term, focusing on social services, productive infra- eliminate locational exclusion, and increase accessibility structure such as irrigation and roads, and flood control to social services and provision of relief during disasters. structures. However, the construction of roads result in opening up protected natural resources to exploitation, which may Interventions to catalyze effective adaptation are impor- reduce mitigation strategies. This dilemma has to be tant at multiple levels (termed points of leverage), which carefully managed, as sustainable livelihoods are exists at the household, community, and sociogeo- achieved only under good governance of resources. graphic zone levels. At the household level, individuals need capacity building through education, sensitization, Irrigation and improvement in modern farming tech- and demonstration programs. They also need enabling niques will make water readily available for domestic institutions--both traditional and formal--and infra- and industrial uses and greatly improve the livelihoods structure to sustain the livelihood activities within of the poor, provided institutions allow them access. which adaptation strategies are implemented. At the Irrigation systems over the past have been associated community level there is the need to strengthen and put with negative consequences such as flooding of hitherto in new institutions to provide financing, enable access to rich valleys, salinization, use of chemicals, and depriva- land, spawn a local processing industrialization or tion of communities that live downstream. What alter- canoe/boat repair, and provide and maintain socioeco- natives would be provided for communities nomic infrastructure. The sociogeographic zone level is downstream? This is where boreholes become impor- important because a common policy framework would tant, and therefore suggest different adaptation strate- apply to a larger area and can be sustained by the gies for achieving the same sectoral goal in different national government and external financing such as is communities. suggested for the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority for the northern savannah zone. Specific Effective early warning systems have growing impor- research is needed on improved crops and farming prac- tance over time. This would require investing in tech- tices, as well as investments in appropriate technology nology for the meteorological offices and other development in terms of climate-proof roads, bridges, monitoring agencies, supporting extension services adapted machinery, markets, banking and credit systems, (health and agriculture), and investing in ways of and policies that enable people to commute or migrate. disseminating the information. In the short term, early These potential points of intervention may allow effec- warning systems are important for the agricultural tive action to be initiated at highly localized levels while regions and areas currently experiencing floods and also encouraging macro level processes to guide the droughts, especially in the northern savannah and the process in a decentralized framework, thereby obviating transition zones. Effective monitoring and evaluation of the delays and red tape associated with current systems programs are also premised on good early warning of governance. systems, which in turn emanate from these monitoring systems. Synergies and Trade-offs among Options Options such as social protection, social services, and The key adaptation priorities identified for the differ- safety nets are important in improving the situation of ent zones have synergistic relationships. However, vulnerable groups. These actions were identified as 50 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A high-cost options exceeding resources currently avail- · Inter-institutional coordination able. Participants envisioned gradual investments into · Poor prioritization by government social and health services and safety nets with stronger · Poor research and development emphasis over longer time horizons by adding migrants · Poor market potential for new technologies and potentially displaced people to the systems over · Poor enforcement of regulations time. This slow progressive approach will sustain vulnerability of many even into the long term. A robust r E L ATi vE p r EvA L E N C E O F " h A r d " pathway is one that combines options best suited in vE r S U S " SO F T" A d A pTATiO N O p Ti O NS optimizing resources in each geographical zone, while enabling many to partake in its benefits. As suggested "Hard" adaptation measures usually imply the use of for the forest zone, without addressing the land tenure specific technologies and actions involving capital issues that define resource access, social safety nets goods, such as dikes, seawalls and reinforced buildings, might reduce the capacity to engage in long-term whereas "soft" adaptation measures focus on informa- proactive initiatives. tion, capacity building, policy and strategy development, and institutional arrangements. Hard adaptation options Improved governance of water and land over the are relatively more expensive to execute than soft adap- medium and long term was identified as a necessary tations. In addition, hard adaptations are inflexible, precondition for effective management of while soft adaptations are more dynamic as they change investments--including infrastructure, dams, and with the nature of the impending threat and the inter- dykes--and also for the success of community-based nal characteristics of the adapter. activities. Who should be responsible for managing the envisaged infrastructure and resources? The tension At both the local and national levels there is a stress on between sectoral and district level remains to be solved, a mixture of both hard and soft adaptation measures. just as that between the district level and local authori- Soft adaptation measures dominate the short-term ties and civil society groups. Participation is needed for suggestions, while hard adaptation measures are effective governance and coordination of actions. suggested for medium and long term in all zones Strengthened civil society, using decentralized struc- except for the coastal fishing community. The farming tures, engaging traditional authorities in planning, and communities want to have irrigation systems in place in using existing platforms for community engagement the medium term after pertinent issues such as land were identified as crucial for addressing governance tenure, input supply, and improved seeds and extension issues. These included improving the security of land services have been provided in the short term. The long tenure, regulation enforcement, increasing the capacity term has a combination of both measures, since the and awareness of personnel implementing policies and initial two phases would have stabilized the local and carrying out monitoring, providing alternatives and macro socioeconomic context. In providing social reward systems for people rather than only restricting services, both measures are needed, but there is a resource use. chicken-and-egg argument as to which one comes first--hospitals and schools versus human resources In order to be effective in responding to climate change and institutional regulations. Some hard adaptation and in fulfilling future development priorities, not only measures require first soft measures such as knowledge identifying adaptation actions are needed, but we need on erosion control for farmers to enable them to imple- to examine key issues and challenges for their imple- ment hard measures such as soil and water conservation mentation. The participants listed the following chal- strategies. To improve water availability, participants lenges as major barriers for promoting adaptation suggested rainwater conservation and also building options: dams to have more water available for irrigation. They also stressed that small-scale dams with completed · Political will and vested interests environmental impact assessments should be supported. · Availability of funds To reduce negative consequences of severe climate · Institutional capacity impacts on food production, building grain silos and d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 51 small agro-processing facilities for conservation of food dissemination and skill development on issues such as surpluses and for help in maintaining food security water harvesting, suitability of planted species, post- were suggested. Participants also suggested changes in harvest techniques, and loan and microcredit planted species to move toward drought-resistant and information. early maturing crops, changes in farming practices by promoting sustainable agriculture, and organic farming Tables 16 and 17 both show the predominance of hard to limit further soil depletion. Actions are also needed versus soft adaptation measures. There is a relative to improve capacities of farmers and their families to predominance of hard versus soft adaptation measures engage in market activities in selling their products, as because of the low investments in social and economic well as improving entrepreneurial skills to generate investments over the years, which have led to an adapta- non-farm income. This could lead to increasing levels tion deficit in infrastructural developments. The high of self-employment, especially in food processing, cost of these investments would require substantial thereby increasing household income. There is also a external support in order to reduce the adaptation need to develop extension services for information deficit. TABLE 16. impACTS ANd idENTiFiEd hArd ANd SOFT AdApTATiON mEASUrES (AGriCULTUrE & WATEr) Key impacts Hard measures Soft measures Reduced water · Erosion control by encouraging contour farming · sustainable water management Availability · irrigation facilities: dams and wells · farmers' education--water harvesting and contour farming droughts · improved post harvest technologies: grain silos · microfinance soil degradation and small-scale agro processing industries · skills for off-farming season activities Erosion · promoting sustainable agriculture: compost · Vocational training--especially for youth, in places with high manure production and biogas plants in-migration · drought-resistant and early maturing crops · creation of markets and training in other sector skills, · Water collection facilities for households including hairdressing, sewing, carpentry · Artificial fertilizer usage · developing agricultural extension services · intensify education on water harvesting · funding and more research for improved varieties · integrated decentralized resource governance systems Source: regional/Zone pSd Workshop, pSd i & ii (2009) TABLE 17. ArEAS OF hiGh impACTS ANd idENTiFiEd rESpONSES (OThEr impACTS) Key impacts Hard measures Soft measures Wild fires · Wildfire control--creating fire belts · Enforcement of laws · mechanize agriculture · public education and sensitization flooding · flood-proof roads · improve social services-- providing · construct drains · flood-displaced victims with assistance · Reservoirs to absorb increased volumes of water · Build flood gates to control water levels · Building dykes embankments--sea defense walls occurrence of diseases · health facilities · health education on personal hygiene · sanitation facilities · Emergency response teams/equipments Emergency preparedness and · Early warning system--equipping meteorological · development of communication forecasts stations mechanisms and agencies · food banks · monitoring and evaluation · disaster response equipment for nAdmo Source: regional/Zone pSd and pSd i & ii (2009) 52 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A LOCAL L ENSES ANd NAT iONAL reduce impacts. These are both innovative positive p ri O ri T i ES : d ivE rGENCE ANd actions and destructive unsustainable actions. Positively, C ON vE r GENCE actions incorporate improvement of natural resources, introduce new assets, reduce drudgery of work, and There are multiple similarities and differences in the increase income earning possibilities. Negatively, actions challenges and pathways suggested by the PRA exercise that intensify mining of natural resources, increase and the workshops, which reflect a divergent knowledge inequalities in society, lead to land grabbing, and base, perceptions, interests, geography, and collective exclude access to hitherto common access resources versus individual actions. The goals and desires of both result in unsustainable resource management and the levels are the same and relate to improving living condi- erosion of the social fabric of communities needed to tions through sustainable livelihoods. The nature of the ensure sustainable livelihoods. impacts and the appropriate adaptation options, however, vary in terms of prioritization. Both hard and National-level options identified by the workshops are soft measures are advocated by both groups. It is impor- more scientific and influenced by analysis at a higher tant to realize that the workshops were dominated by level, which incorporate some concerns of the local level. bureaucrats with western lenses, while the PRAs were They reflect sectoral capacities and responsibilities that with local people who work with tradition, experience, ultimately should be favorable to the individual efforts at and perception. the local level. Options listed by experts are often expen- sive, with limited inputs by local communities. The challenges experienced at the local level were related directly to their livelihoods. The impacts of The similarities and differences in conception of the climate change on agriculture, water supply, heat, hous- challenges and adaptation options pose challenges to ing, income, expenditure, and how these translated into successful adaptation. This calls for carefully selected transforming social relations between men and women, options at the national level that provide complementa- migrants and indigenes, elderly and youth, landless and rities to local-level actions. Research into drought-resis- landlords, the wealthy and assetless, skilled versus tant crop varieties would be a demand-driven unskilled, and so on highlighted the impact of climate national-level option with important synergies with the change on local livelihoods. Local people in the zones local level. Small-scale irrigation would provide alterna- are more concerned with declining living standards tives to cultivating close to waterbodies which causes associated with depleting natural resources and poor silting and eventual water source degradation. inaccessible social services. They do understand the Microfinance is of holistic importance as it straddles all holistic nature of livelihoods and so engage in multiple sectors and leads to incremental building of individual livelihoods, which are socially constrained by financing, and local capacities when well-planned. inadequate skills, and rigidities in local economies. p O Li C y p r E C O Nd iTi O N S A N d The challenges at the national level relate to impacts i N S Ti T U Ti O N A L B A S E from the local level that prevent achievement of national goals. These are seen at an aggregate level with There are a number of necessary preconditions and modern lenses that still see the traditional as inferior to institutional requirements needed to ensure adaptation the modern and stress national priorities of increasing to climate change and variability and other vulnerabili- GNP, conserving the environment, improving social ties. A premature engagement with strategies without amenities, and modernizing agriculture. The challenges these conditions in place could entail certain risks with therefore mimic threats to national income growth, potentially huge economic costs and failures. Significant future sustainability, and the relevance of organizations improvements in governance-- including decentraliza- participants represented. tion, increased participation, sustainable resource management, and secured land tenure--were listed as Adaptation options chosen by the local level are often needed preconditions to increase the adaptive capacity straightforward, simple, practical actions that counter or of communities. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 53 Currently, sectoral planning is the responsibility of the C O N C L U Si O N S F rO m W O r K Sh Op T rA C K Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning rather than the National Development Planning Commission, which In general, climate impacts in Ghana will differ signifi- is now orphaned. An umbrella organization is needed to cantly between the northern savannah zone and the incorporate climate and other concerns into national coastal areas in the south. The northern savannah is development planning. National policies can only be expected to be mostly affected by increased occurrence translated into action when short, medium, and long-term of drought; the rest of the country is expected to experi- perspectives are taken rather than the current short focus ence increased variability of precipitation and hotter based on the length of time political parties stay in power. temperatures. The transition zone may develop a A development agenda needs to transcend political unimodal rainfall regime. Most of the coastal regions parties and ideologies and endure through both central are susceptible to tidal flooding and coastal erosion. and local level planning, which is flexible enough to These aspects are already manifest in the zones and may incorporate dynamism from emerging trends and shocks. be exacerbated in the future. The main key impacts include reduced water availability, droughts, and soil National and regional level policies need to mainstream degradation. Social ramifications of these impacts vary climate change issues into their development visions. according to the capacities of the population, but in Luckily, the dependence on natural resources makes general they pose a significant threat to food security climate change an integral part of the development land- and resource-based livelihoods, including rainfed agri- scape of both rural and urban locations. Some precondi- culture, fisheries, and forestry. These impacts have the tions include an enabling macroeconomic environment, potential to increase migration and to increase the external stability, legal authority granted by the govern- concentration of population in slums, potentially caus- ment to implementing organizations, and effective super- ing further vulnerabilities. There will likely be signifi- vision involving internal control policies and procedures. cant social impacts, such as increased disease and unemployment; limited access to, and significant However, further institutional requirements need to be increase in the need for basic services; pressure on infra- established in support of policy at the national and structure, including roads, housing, drinking water, and regional levels. These institutional elements should sanitation; and labor shortages in the out-migration include effective governance, transparency, sound finan- areas. cial management, systems for monitoring and evalua- tion, improving professional capacities, political will, Adaptation pathways are sector and locational specific non-interference by the ruling party or operational according to the vulnerabilities and resources of these independence, local participation, endogenous develop- sectors and locations. Adaptation pathways tend to ment, appropriate technology, and collaboration stress both hard and soft measures, but the poor state of between implementing agencies and local communities. Ghana's landescapitale makes hard strategies predomi- nant, at least in the medium term. The main constrains Overall, the process of adaptation appears to depend on to the ability of sectors and zones to adapt relate to the multiple layers of incentives, institutions, and infrastruc- cost of implementing measures, poor institutional base, tural availability, which are in turn are created by poor political commitment, and lack of independence of national and global policies. Getting the right climate- implementing agencies. There is the need to put in proof policies and ensuring an effective institutional place some policy preconditions and build a strong base is necessary for Ghana to meet the challenges to institutional base to guide and ensure the effectiveness adaptation. of adaptive strategies. 54 6. SyNThESiS ANd diSCUSSiON due to poverty, poor skills and knowledge, demographic variables, and other non-climate drivers of vulnerability. Our results show the need to institute support mecha- Ov E rvi EW OF EmErGiNG ThEmES nisms in the areas of protecting or building household assets, adapting traditional institutions to grant access to Ghana is at serious risk from climate change and related vulnerable groups, developing infrastructure that risks. The country is exposed to climate hazards such as increases community resilience, and--of great drought, flood, and rising sea level, which indirectly importance--improving the skills of people to enable reduce the viability of livelihoods in agriculture and them to survive in the current economic context of destroys infrastructure, thereby reducing both household multiple livelihoods. and area resilience. The poor modernization of the agri- cultural sector, which still relies on outmoded methods There is a need for a well-coordinated, integrated and practices of cultivation, has widespread implications climate-proof development pathway for the country for the vulnerability of people in different zones. Zones since climate change affects all aspects of life. with higher levels of their population engaged in food Considering the activities of humankind as one inter- crop cultivation where modernization is the lowest are connected/organic whole therefore leads to advocating particularly vulnerable and tend to transfer their vulner- that sectoral planning be discarded in favor of an inte- ability to neighboring zones by migration. Prioritization grated framework that allows the activities of all sectors of the zones and specific hotspots becomes an impor- and the development community to feed into each tant prerequisite to enable policy planning processes to other. Not only will this reduce the inefficiencies and mainstream these issues according to severity and insti- redundancies of disaggregated planning, but it will tute measures that prevent people from lapsing into enable stakeholders with different expertise to fine-tune structural vulnerability, which most developing countries the planning process and minimize the externalities that have limited capacity to reverse. The failure to consider result from different adaptation strategies. the adaptation needs of the poor will impinge on Ghana's general development of in terms of mobilizing The role of the state is paramount in adapting to the resources of all regions for the improved well-being climate change. A minimalist state is a recipe for disas- of its citizenry. ter in developing countries, where community resilience is low due to inadequate social amenities and economic This study emphasizes the need for adaptation support infrastructure. As discussed previously, household resil- mechanisms tailored to the risks, needs, prioritization, ience can be offset by poor community resilience such and particularities of different vulnerable groups and as inadequate water, health, educational, and road infra- communities and sociogeographic zones. Existing adap- structure. In addition, the macroeconomic situation is tation strategies are limited both in scope and potential the domain of the state, which institutes policies that d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 55 translate into incentives, opportunities, and disincen- high due to population growth and migration and tives. This becomes an important avenue for the state to limited institutional capacities to deal with these. direct and reconfigure the current architecture of adap- Urbanites with access to institutional resources have tation to fit the desired visions of each zone. Policies higher resilience than those not favored or who have no and programs for adaptation will be useless without access to them. The role of social capital is of utmost some preconditions, among which are enforcement of importance in both urban and rural areas. Social legislation at both the community and national levels. processes are influenced to a large extent by political Given the poor capacities of the state in Ghana, inter- capital. Patron-client relations still flourish, but in a national assistance becomes necessary in financial, tech- modern disguise, and these influence sustainable liveli- nical, and human resources to enable the state to carry hood outcomes. out its core functions. The human capital base of households determines K E y FACTO r S iN hOUSE hOL d AN d A rE A contemporary resilience. Human capital is determined rES iLi ENCE by size of household, sex composition, dependency ratios, literacy, skills possessed, and physical ability. Household resilience or adaptive capacities are depen- These are important dimensions of internal vulnerabil- dent on a range of factors and conditions. Of prime ity of households because they determine even the asset importance are household assets, which form the foun- base, labor availability, quality of the labor, diversity of dation for any livelihood strategy but which are results skills, household burdens, and level of enlightenment of social processes and relations. The range of house- and ability to appreciate trends and react appropriately. hold assets include both tangible and non-tangible assets such as land, houses, equipment, livestock, and Differential zonal resilience relates to physical attri- human capital. The type and amount of household butes, social systems, and politico-economic forces. assets defines the capacity to adapt and engage in There is a reduction in natural physical luxuriance and sustainable livelihoods. These are in turn determined physical infrastructure and investments as one moves mostly by traditional land tenure and inheritance from the urban coast to the rural savannah. These natu- systems in rural locations, and by a combination of ral and economic deprivations increase northwards and these and state laws and institutions in urban areas. therefore reduce resilience northwards. The neo-liberal New social processes emerge as culture is dynamic and export-oriented development path adopted by Ghana responds to environmental and economic changes. gives prominence to more ecologically endowed regions, Access to resources determines the livelihood strategies which increases their resilience due to the social services and success of these strategies. The northern savannah and economic infrastructure provided by the state in has easier access to land by mostly men than in any addition to the business investments by locals and expa- other zone. However, the constraints of the physical triates. The social systems in the zones privilege certain environment and past state discriminatory policies groups, mostly landlords, males, and the wealthy, against reduce the success of households using natural- others such as females, the landless, the sick and weak, resource-based activities. The commercialization of and the poor. land transactions makes land available to those who can afford it, thereby leading to inequalities that create Adaptive capacity among households is conditioned by large vulnerable groups, including women, youths, and assets and capital, which are a function of local institu- the poor. Women generally have poorer access to land tions that define social processes and relations. These as a resource, but not the wild products found on land. eventually influence the resilience of the area/zone in The dynamics of access to productive resources in which they live. Area resilience is the outcome of urban areas is much more complex as both state and macroeconomic policy and the physical environment, non-state actors use different institutional rules in which interact with household resilience as enabled by granting these. Having the right connections is impor- local institutions. Building resilience therefore entails tant in urban settings, since the competition for space, building household assets, fine-tuning local and formal permits, business links, and social services is extremely institutions, providing social and economic 56 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A infrastructure, and above all ensuring equity in national vulnerability profiles attributable to socio-politico- development that combines inward-looking and economic drivers. outward-looking paradigms. Poverty reduces the capacity of people in meeting climate driv E rS OF vULNErAB iL iT y iN CLi m AT E challenges and leading sustainable livelihoods. Poverty in Ch ANGE C ONTEXTS Ghana is highly spatial and increases as one moves north. Generally, rural areas compared to urban areas harbor the Ghana's vulnerability to climate change is in large part bulk of Ghana's poor. Drier areas such as the savannahs, defined by its vulnerability to natural hazards. which harbor the majority of the poor in Ghana, are Vulnerability in all sectors of the Ghanaian economy more risky and vulnerable to climate change and variabil- and among households results from both climate- ity than wetter areas. However, the drivers of vulnerabil- induced and socio-politico-economic drivers. The inter- ity due to climate change are gradually penetrating the action between environmental and socioeconomic better ecological zones aided by non-climate drivers of drivers of climate change results in structural vulnerabil- vulnerability. Adaptation to climate change therefore has ity conditions for different people in different sociogeo- to tackle both types of drivers as they determine the graphic zones. The three main climate drivers of external and internal attributes of vulnerability. vulnerability in Ghana include droughts, floods, and coastal erosion. Droughts are a major problem for the LO C A L A Nd NATi O N A L d iS C O Ur S E O N northern and southern savannahs, with increasing C Li m AT E A N d h A Z Ar d S: i Np U T S TO significance for the transitional zone. Climate variability d E Ci S i O N S U p pO rT S yS T Em S in terms of fluctuating weather conditions increases the vulnerability of the bulk of the population who depend The need to mainstream climate change into national on natural-resource-based activities for their living. development planning and processes is long overdue. Climate change is necessarily a development issue as Environmental change emerging through the driver of physical climatic and human systems interact with climate change inflicts harsh and extreme environmen- synergistic feedback effects. This study brings to bear tal conditions upon rural smallholder farmers and there- the necessity for integrating climate concerns into the fore has direct implications for creating unsustainable development agenda in order to ensure the long-term livelihoods. Farmers have their investments washed achievement of the Ghana development goals, in partic- down the drain by floods and droughts almost every ular the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). second year, especially in the northern savannah zone. Mainstreaming climate risks into the national develop- High temperatures affect crops, water availability, and ment agenda reduces the devastating consequences of the productivity of farmers. There is reported withering unanticipated climate-related hazards, including costs of crops all over the country due to extreme heat, and that constitute significant drains on national resources, an emerging high disease burden on crops, livestock, thereby stifling the achievement of set goals. Local and and people. Heat waves have led to the outbreak of national discourses on climate change need to main- cerebro-spinal meningitis all over northern Ghana and stream proactive policies that seek to build the resilience even in the transition zone due to migration. and readiness of their populations and their livelihood systems. Though climate change is an additional vulner- Vulnerability in the context of climate change is the ability, it has overarching implications for all other consequent fall in well-being attributed to the change vulnerabilities and should constitute the focal reference simply because people are unable to cope and adapt point for policies. Climate-proofing is best achieved at positively without adverse effects. Two sides of vulnera- the national policy level, where most of Ghana's local- bility are worth noting: the first is the extent to which level financing and decisions come from. Decisions at an area is susceptible to unfavorable weather changes, the national level should aim at achieving sustainable and the second is the adaptive capacity of local popula- development by supporting broad-based local-level tion. Within each of the ecological zones different actions to strengthen the capacity of the poor to cope people with different characteristics exhibit different with climate vulnerability. d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 57 The sectoral bias of the development process in Ghana The criteria for leveraging should be based on the means that sectoral policies are relevant entry points. nature of climate change impacts, number of people The agricultural, water, road, and communication affected by a particular impact, cost of implementing sectors are identified as critical to the well-being of a policy, sustainability of measures by local people and majority of Ghanaians. Policies to enhance agricultural district assembly, likely multiplier effects of policies, production, harness water harvesting and provision, balance of negative and positive effects, the resilience of provide weather-proof infrastructure, and an implemen- the policy measures, and replicability. These criteria tation framework that ensures that programs are imple- should be applied to both spatial leveraging and sectoral mented well needs urgent attention. In the social sphere, programming; that is, both the where and what. The improving human resources, strengthening institutional proposed adaptation pathways point to agriculture, systems, and putting public finances on a sound finan- water, infrastructure, and social services forming the cial footing are important inputs. Policies must aim at fulcrum sectors around which robust adaptation ensuring that the natural resources most sensitive to measures must swing. climate hazards--such as water, soil, forest, and coastal systems--are sustainably managed. In the short term, specific interventions are needed in hotspots to improve the situations before general policy The National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) under measures can be effective. Households and coastal construction will serve as an important instrument main- communities ravaged by coastal erosion cannot wait for streaming climate change issues into the development the long and painful processes that policy planning process. The overarching goal of policy is to reduce the takes. Likewise, communities in the Sudan savannah vulnerability to climate hazards in the future. The goal of zone are living at the margin of existence with starva- the National Adaptation Strategy (draft version) is to tion, disease, and squalor resulting from and competing future-proof developments and to build in resilience to with climate vulnerability. "Quick and dirty" programs climate change impacts now and in the future in order to can be very effective in increasing and generating reinforce and increase the capacity of Ghanaian society robust adaptation strategies and increasing resilience and ecosystems to adapt to climate change. Ultimately over time. Also, policy interventions at these places the NAS is to position Ghana to reduce the risks of should be justified based on the opportunity cost of climate change impacts and realize any opportunities that "doing nothing." This will involve degradation of the climate change provides for sustainable development. environment to delay peoples' own destruction, relocat- ing vulnerability to other zones, creating empty spaces S CALE : LE vEr AGiNG NATiONAL AN d that actually need people for effective eco-management, S UBNATi ONAL pOL iCiES AN d competition and conflict over resources, and above all iN v EST mENTS FOr pr O-pOO r constituting a scar on national developmental Ad A p TAT i ON achievement. The main spatial points of attention for policy focus Generating robust coping and adapting strategies to should be the national, sociogeographic, district, and climate change requires incremental steps rather than community levels. Sectorally, the most important are discrete ones. Incremental steps should build on existing agriculture, water, roads, energy, and health and educa- structures and processes and the establishment of new tion. The need for leveraging is due to both resource ones based on the principles of participation, empower- constraints and the effectiveness of concentrating on a ment, resilience, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness. In few select points that will produce general effects over this regard the mainstreaming of climate change issues the whole system. into national-level policy is a first important step. The translation of this action into area development activi- Spatially, the impacts of climate change are different, ties is a second step, and the specific targeting of vulner- which calls for different measures to be instituted in able groups by safety nets and specific programs should different geographical zones to reduce the impacts and be the last step. This ensures that the ultimate objective increase the resilience of the people. of adaptation is anthropocentric well-being. 58 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A At the national level, policies should focus on general Concentrating only on measures that mitigate climate macroeconomic stability and meaningful growth in all disasters will be counterproductive to achieving overall sectors to be useful to different social and economic sustained development. Rather, a focus on building the groups. At the district level, the visions of the area resilience of the poor, their communities, and balanced should be achieved by actions that protect their valuable equitable national development should be the goal of resources, opens access to livelihood resources to all, policies and investments. improves the well-being of people, and enables the vulnerable outside the market system to eventually get m U LTi S E C TOr A L AN A Ly Si S A N d onboard. District-level planning should aim at increas- pr O G r A m m iN G ing area resilience, especially in infrastructure, and translating national policy goals into reality. There is a general consensus that achieving progress in adapting to climate change can only be achieved Community-level policies should aim at eliminating through an integrated approach that brings onboard debilitating practices and laws, as well as building social multi-stakeholder involvement. This is needed to rid capital and community support mechanisms to improve Ghana of the duplication of functions and inefficient social resilience. Particular concerns include the land use of national resources. Mainstreaming climate tenure system, which disadvantages women and the change in the national budgetary process certainly needs poor; inheritance systems, which are important for a coordinated integrated approach to the use of intergenerational wealth transfer; conflict resolution resources. An integrated approach means sharing of using alternative dispute resolution mechanisms based ideas, generating strategies, developing plans, imple- on tradition; and ownership of community adaptation menting strategies, enforcing rules, shared responsibility, measures. The various social processes that constrain and enlivening the spirit of integrated development. productivity and marginalize people need radical over- Adopting an integrated approach should involve multi- haul, often with negative political fall-outs that will be stakeholder consultations and be based on participatory disastrous in the current democratic dispensation. The scenario development and planning, which this study internal capacities of communities determine the aptly shows to be very useful in building consensus and success of external interventions by area development eliminating the fears different sectors and civil society initiatives and national-level policies. The community have about each other's organizations. and individual actions already in place need to be supported and enhanced. Understanding the integrated nature of climate change is key to designing robust adaptation strategies. Multi- The overall goal of national and area development stakeholder discussions are the best in unraveling the policy should improve the adaptive capacity of the indi- linked processes of impacts on different sectors of an vidual at the household level. At the household and economy. individual levels, policies need to aim at eliminating the structural rigidities and helping the most vulnerable An integrated planning process that mainstreams overcome their own problems by enabling access to climate change has benefits of leveraging at the best land, markets, credit, and social services. These require points, and making trade-offs that ensure sustainability new sets of social relations that can be manipulated of different livelihood options and the environment. The from cultural, economic and environmental policies, poor capacities of the different sectoral ministries in rules and norms. Progressive local leadership is needed Ghana would benefit where the few experts merge to to translate national laws and policies to the benefit of create a larger body and capacity for designing and the individual. effectively implementing robust actions. Over time, the capacities of each of the sector ministries will grow, Policies and investments must be pro-poor not in the following conscious efforts to either recruit and/or sense of giving handouts, but concentrating on long- educate existing staff. An integrated approach in the lasting investments that will buffer the poor from context of Ghana should not be limited to only the inte- climate challenges and other drivers of vulnerability. gration of sector ministries, but must involve civil society d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 59 groups and local government departments who are ensures effective development, implementation, and already working on diverse sectoral issues. Civil society coordination of cross-cutting interventions that tran- was instrumental in detailing the local-level impacts and scend different sectors. Trade-offs become important in appropriate micro level interventions that have worked the process as different sectors assess the outcomes of from experience. These interventions can be main- specific interventions of their systems. Choices need to streamed into national and district-level plans in zones be made out of these conflicting circumstances that where they are appropriate. An integrated planning reflect both human security and environmental sustain- process necessitates participation. Fortunately, the decen- ability. In a developing country where these two are tralization program instituted to strengthen local gover- direct opposites, the critical factor in the choice of inter- nance and the activities of civil society have inculcated ventions should be synergy. To what extent does a the spirit and purpose of participation into collaborative program contain activities that have multiplier effects activity planning. Adherence to participatory planning across sectors? How sustainable are activities and their and a bottom-up approach to planning processes that results? And what form of resilience is built with what start at the community level will enable the capturing of capacities for both individuals and communities for robust, practicable, and well-sequenced adaptation strat- dealing with new threats emerging from adaptation? egies. Multisectoral programming resulting from joint Certainly, an integrated system involving agriculture, analyses needs to transcend advocacy, capacity building, water, infrastructure, and the social services provides hard interventions, and monitoring and evaluations. better avenues for coordinated robust adaptation than Programming should therefore involve participatory individual sector programs with unintended conse- development of tools and management guides that quences that are difficult to internalize holistically. 60 7. CONCLUSiONS ANd over 90 percent of people depend on rainfed agriculture and the harvesting of non-timber resources. Activities rECOmmENdATiONS that are not based on natural resources now offer better prospects, as globalization enabled by the country's S UmmA ry OF FiNdiNGS macroeconomic policy direction has made informal sector commercial activities more profitable. However, This study has assessed the key impacts, vulnerabilities, poor investments in the non-farm sector do not trans- and robust adaptation strategies and pathways for late into high resilience, but rather transfer of vulnera- achieving sustainable future outcomes for all sociogeo- bility from farm to non-farm via palliative graphic zones in Ghana. The climate of Ghana is diversification. Generally, the northern savannah and changing, with ramifications such as a reduced amount the coastal rural locations have lower resilience than the of rainfall and higher incidences of rainfall variability, forest and transitional zones. This is due to the severity higher temperatures, frequent occurrence of floods, and of impacts in these locations and the low adaptive coastal erosion along the east coast. Impacts of climate capacity of the people, caused by poor state interven- change are therefore categorized into direct and indi- tions and their poor internal capacities. rect. The direct impacts relate to productive activities and effects of climate disasters, while the indirect effects The study enumerates several existing robust adaptation are consequences of these direct effects, which are often strategies at the local level with the potential to enable spin-offs from initial impacts. sustainable livelihoods and sustained development of the nation. Some of these actions need urgent state Vulnerability to climate change is not uniform but support to avoid a livelihood collapse. These local-level varies from person to person, from place to place, and robust adaptation strategies include: by type of activity. Social differentiation defines access to resources for coping and adapting to climate-related · Developing drought-resistant short gestation crops vulnerability. The main categories of vulnerable groups · Developing small-scale irrigation systems with poor capacities include widows, disabled, aged, · Increasing the knowledge base and supporting inte- children, youths, and divorced women. These groups grated farming are disadvantaged by social processes such as inheri- · Promoting woodlots and mangrove regeneration tance rules, land tenure systems, and lack of support with incentives from formal institutions. In terms of occupational · Research into appropriate less expensive building groupings, those depending on natural resources-- technology especially food crop farmers--are more vulnerable than · Enhancing mechanization of agriculture and those in non-agricultural activities. Hence, rural areas encouraging productivity using agrochemicals tend to be more vulnerable than urban areas because · Refining arrangements for access to land d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 61 · Provision of microcredit and skills for diversified should be premised on the following: its multiplier livelihoods effects on general livelihoods; feasibility of the options; · Encouraging acquaculture, restocking our rivers sustainability; familiarity; and the political will and and lakes with fingerlinks leadership to support options. The main constraints to · Provision of community social and economic infra- adaptation include the cost of implementing measures, structure, including insurance poor institutional base, poor political commitment, and · Providing early warning information lack of independence of implementing agencies. There · Targeting the poorest with starter packs and access is a need to put in place some policy preconditions and routes for livelihood resources build a strong institutional base to guide and ensure the effectiveness of adaptive strategies. Adaptation interventions should be systematically struc- tured so as to benefit the most vulnerable households r E Sp O Nd i N G TO d i rE C T A N d i N d i rE C T and communities within vulnerable regions. i m pA C T O F C Li m AT E C hA N G E S Interventions need to be considered on short, medium, and long terms. Short-term interventions are less The direct and indirect impacts of climate change have expensive and constitute advocacy, relief, and support of posed great challenges to Ghana's developmental existing strategies. Medium-term interventions are agenda. The responses to these challenges have been at planned involving more infrastructures and institutional different levels from the individual to community and capacities needed to build area resilience, which is iden- national levels. The responses can be categorized as tified as the weakest link in Ghanaian adaptive capacity. being coping and adapting strategies. Responses at all Long-term interventions are a continuation of hard the levels are instrumental in meeting climate chal- strategies of infrastructure and technology, but with a lenges and actually internalizing these externalities. focus on management capacities to ensure sustainable However, the experience of Ghana shows that the strat- integrated resource management. Adaptation strategies egies at the individual level are more prominent than need specific leveraging, especially beginning with the the other levels. This does not mean that individual agriculture, water, and services sectors, which have level strategies are more effective. It simply points to the synergistic positive relationships with each other and poor area resilience of the Ghanaian landscape due to other sectors. Locationally, interventions should be crumbling social support and institutional governance at distributed according to the nature of threats and the community levels and the poor support from the impacts and vulnerability characteristics and history of state due to financial inadequacies and capacities. discrimination in national development programming. Ultimately, the burden of responding to climate change This calls for leveraging at zonal levels involving the use falls on individual households who maneuver within of district assemblies or establishments of special community and national systems to cope and adapt to authorities such as the Savannah Accelerated climate and other challenges. Livelihood diversification, Development Authority. especially by women, is an important response in all zones studied. This calls for a focus on alternative liveli- The identified future priorities included improvements hood programs. Migration has been an avenue for in resilience among the poor by improving basic living spreading the risks of climate change and judiciously conditions such as improved access to health care using the country's resources as population moves from through health insurance, safe water, and affordable climate ravaged and economically neglected zones to clean energy. Adaptation options and pathways are new opportunity zones. This is both an individual and a assessed based on the synergies between responses to national response strategy that needs management by climate change and the desired development pathway. fine tuning institutions, especially in receiving areas. Specific priorities identified focused on improving agri- cultural production, improved land management prac- Responses in the agricultural sector and rural environ- tices, managed migration, improved conditions of ment generally have been an age-old way of living. women, improved governance, and functional institu- Farmers have responded to climate threats by coping tional structures. The choice of adaptation options with shocks and adapting to trends within the 62 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A constraints and opportunities of wider dynamic physi- on agriculture. Research into climate-proof crop variet- cal, social, and economic conditions. Local farmers have ies has been quite successful by the Crops Research coped with shortfalls in crop production by relying on Institute, Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, and other natural resources for food and income, or diversi- the Cocoa Research Institute. More could be achieved fied livelihoods temporarily to procure basic necessities from these organizations if funding and a broader of life. Due to the limited nature of most rural econo- mandate is given to them. In addition, their activities mies, the most vulnerable resort to extreme measures need to be guided by the farmer-first approach rather such as rationing of food, avoidance of modern medical than technocratic dictates of mainstream science, which care, and other costly social services. These measures wastes research money on high-yielding inappropriate have negative consequences by pushing them into varieties of crops and methods of farming. structural vulnerability. Social support systems--the sharing of food among community members, commu- S O Ci A L r i S K m A N A G Em E N T: A S S E T nal labor to rehabilitate destroyed property, lending of d Ev E L Op mE N T A Nd SO Ci A L pr O T E C Ti O N money and resources without interest, fostering of chil- dren by other relatives for the most vulnerable, and The magnitudes of climate impacts are very high in psychological healing and moral support--are impor- Ghana and will increase over the coming decades, tant in communities as responses to climate hazards. showing a high probability of occurrence. The social These social processes and how they change over time risks associated with climate change need proactive are crucial to the success of sustainable livelihoods in management measures aimed at increasing the resilience terms of adaptation to climate change. Of great impor- and adaptive capacities of individuals and communities. tance in traditional societies is the governance system, Social risk management consists of public interventions which should ensure that these support mechanisms to assist individuals, households, and communities work. Many of these mechanisms are based on moral better manage risk, and to provide support to the criti- encumbrances rather than strict legal requirements in cally poor. Climate risk management involves proactive modern judiciary cycles. Community support systems "no regret" strategies aimed at maximizing positive and and individual capacities define the coping and adapta- minimizing negative outcomes for communities and tion strategies that are unleashed as responses to societies in climate-sensitive areas such as agriculture, climatic challenges. These are couched in terms of food security, water resources, and health. social relations that ultimately provide people with access to specific adaptation options. Asset protection and asset building are age-old risk management strategies whose relevance has been State responses to climate change and other threats are increased by climate change risks. Both tangible and interwoven into the developmental activities spawned to intangible assets, including modern insurance schemes, increase the resilience of people. Apart from the sectoral are important buffers. In the northern savannah and in measures that aim at providing support to agriculture, many other places, livestock play important roles in water, health, sanitation and general infrastructure, the mitigating the effects of direct and indirect impacts of state also responds to idiosyncratic events such as floods climate by providing income and food to households. and famine through its principal organization Other household equipment and savings are of rele- NADMO. The district assemblies have also become vance as buffers to climate-induced stress. The chal- agents of coping by providing palliative measures such lenge is to sustainably manage these risk management as fixing washed-away culverts and dirt roads, roofing strategies as they have their flip sides such as overstock- public buildings after storms, assisting in providing ing of livestock and environmental degradation. Modern relief during disasters and generally stabilizing the insurance schemes in agriculture and health are effec- damage scene. Due to financial constraints, the state has tive, but will meet challenges due to the poor function- not been effective in long-term adaptation to climate ing of existing insurance schemes and the legal tussles challenges. Climate-proofed bridges and roads are built that people go through to make claims and their associ- at a very slow pace and often in urban areas rather than ated additional financial burdens. State-backed insur- rural areas, where such hazards have debilitating effects ance systems should be instituted based on the adaption d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 63 of recommended, tried, and acceptable practices in other the concerns of vulnerable groups with regard to climate parts of the world. However, assets are not politically and other challenges. Mainstreaming climate change neutral. They are the results of conscious societal engi- issues into wider policy should aim at building adaptive neering defined by the rules and norms that ascribe capacity at household, area and national levels. The different rights regimes and access patterns. Changes in phases of the policy cycle should aim at reducing these institutions are necessary for asset building and impacts of climate change and increasing adaptive effective strategies. capacity. A policy cycle usually starts from an identifica- tion of policy issues. This process typically should be Social capital as a risk-pooling support mechanism is participatory by eliciting the voices of concerned citi- important for community resilience in both urban and zens and stakeholder groups, political pressures and rural areas. Both state and civil society need to focus on inputs from the research community, and other experts. programs that strengthen local organizations and tradi- Deliberations should feed into a definition of broad tional support systems to effectively provide the needed policy objectives that mainstream climate change. support to their members to cope and adapt to climate Policies should not only be stated at the broad level but change. Advocacy and introduction of new climate- be translated into operational objectives, or operational proof technologies, for instance, can best be achieved by policy targets/visions as envisaged by different stake- contagious and expanded diffusion mechanisms using holders and deliberated upon by experts and politicians. these existing networks. It is important to form farmer/ This process should bring several advantages, such as livelihood groups to develop their own agri/business fueling a consultation process involving both potential activities, where climate information is used as inputs gainers and losers, anticipating the spinoff effects of for making better plans, strategies, and decisions. adaptive mechanisms, determining appropriate adjust- ments and solutions to potential hurdles, and finally State social safety nets are inevitable, as there are a informing program formulation and implementation. growing number of structurally vulnerable people who are left out by traditional networks of support based on Main areas of concern should focus on enabling farmers family, friendship, and occupational solidarity. Also, state to adopt efficient farming practices, providing irrigation social safety nets are needed to cater to the large number systems, ensuring the stabilization of incomes by effec- of people who are affected by disasters and need time to tive market regulations, facilitating the rehabilitation adjust. Shelters, food, and sanitation are the major chal- and restoration of degraded lands, reducing effects of lenges facing NADMO when there is a disaster. droughts and floods, supporting alternative livelihoods, Strengthening the capacities and services of the different ensuring sound environmental management, and sectors providing productive and social services is crucial providing general infrastructure in all sectors. in building adaptive capacities of the vulnerable groups. Prioritization among the numerous competing objec- Opportunities for social risk management are rife in the tives needs an incremental policy framework that sets Ghanaian landscape, but tapping these necessitates a objectives according to designated adaptation pathways clear policy focus that seeks to mainstream climate risk designed over time. Measures should assist vulnerable and builds on existing support systems while adapting groups affected negatively (environmental refugees) by new options using preventive, mitigation, and coping climate change to exit current livelihood systems, espe- interventions from other places. cially agriculture into alternative livelihoods. Also, those remaining in natural-resource-based livelihood systems iN p UTS TO AdAp Tiv E CA pACiT y TO need support to make them viable and profitable S Upp OrT vULNErABLE GrOUp S enough to enable endogenous adaptation. Increasingly, a mixture of different livelihood activities is adopted by policy design and implementation local people with proven advantages over single liveli- hoods. Policies encouraging people to spread their risk Policy design and implementation processes need are appropriate using multiple livelihood systems. A cautious and collaborative crafting that takes on board twin objective framework targeting the building of 64 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A adaptive capacity and reducing vulnerability of social Building the capacities of both local people and techno- groups and sectors to climate change should be the crats in climate-proof behaviors should be achieved by focus of policy. advocacy and capacity building programs. Adaptation to climate hazards in Ghana therefore The sequencing and prioritization of programs and necessitates multiple policy objectives that are projects in specific locations is as necessary as the sequenced incrementally and leveraged at points with programs themselves. Stand-alone projects have a maximum spin-off positive effects. poorer chance of achieving the desired outcomes unless the general development trajectory is well-sequenced program design and implementation with incremental synergistic links between parallel and build-on projects. The nature of state organizations in Translating policies into reality necessitates programs Ghana calls for a twin approach to program design and and well-managed projects. Contrary to past program implementation. The consultative processes must be designs that were crafted within specific sectors, there is participatory by all stakeholders from which jointly a growing agitation for cross-sectoral planning to ensure designed projects are implemented collaboratively by a synergistic benefits. An integrated versus single sector number of organizations. The second approach should programming involving agriculture, water, roads, and consist of sector-specific projects implemented by communication and social services is imperative in the specific sectors with inspections and advice from allied current situation. Harmonized adaptation interventions sectors. The second stream must consist of projects that should be developed by a participatory stakeholder run parallel in two or more sectors so as to minimize process involving people across different sectors. These the unintended fallout of projects. The failure of most programs should be managed by a competent cross- projects in the developing world is often attributable to sectoral team with effective coordination of activities by the absence of supporting services. Projects to improve the different sectors and actors. farmer productivity would fail in the absence of comple- mentary services such as credit and insurance schemes, Program design should focus on increasing resilience, efficient markets, processing and storage facilities, and building adaptive capacity, reducing vulnerability and good extension services. Programs for climate change poverty, enhancing productivity, ensuring environmental should therefore consider the chain of activities and sustainability, sustainable livelihoods, and enhancing processes that affect the achievement of desired policy national capacity. 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In A. Ernest, ed. Planning nium development goals. Washington, DC: World Bank. 70 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Yaro, J. 2002. "The Poor Peasant: One label, different strategies in Kajelo, Chiana and Korania." PhD, lives. The Dynamics of rural livelihood strategies in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography. Oslo: Gia-Kajelo community, Northern Ghana." Norwegian University of Oslo. Journal of Geography 56(1): 10­20. Yaro, J. A. 2006. "Is deagrarianisation real? A study of Yaro, J. A. 2004. "Combating food insecurity in livelihood activities in rural northern Ghana." Journal of Northern Ghana: Food insecurity and rural livelihood Modern African Studies 44(1): 125­156. 71 AppENdiXES App EN di X 1. hOUSE hOL d qUEST iO N N Ai r E 1. Village and household characteristics a. Village Name: c. Household code: b. Village code: 1 2 3 4 5 6 d. respondent name: e. sex of respondent: male female f. relation of respondent to household head 1. household head 2. Wife of household head 3. other g. Number of years the family of the household members is living in the village: ______________________ h. Number of years, household occupies this residence: ______________________ i.1 rank occupations of the household in order of importance (1 = most important,..., 8 = least important; 0 = no source of income for any of the household members; * use cards indicating the possible activities and ask the respondent to order them from most important to least important, with a separate pile for activities that are not performed; * alternatively, they can indicate the importance of each activity by allocating stones over the seven items, for which they allocate more stones to the more important activities) i.2 indicate whether the activity is especially performed by men or women; if there's no difference, tick both answers. (i.1) Main activities of the household (i.2) Performed by men or women Men Women crop farming Animal husbandry fisheries day labor within agriculture off-farm labor (non-agricultural) 72 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A trade and commerce civil servant other: Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 2. Household composition and household characteristics This question deals with the household members who are currently living within the household and those who migrated for less than 12 months. a. What is the sex of the household members? Tick male or female. b. What is the age of the household members? c. Did the household member migrate for a period of less than 12 months during the last year? Tick yes or no. d. How many years of education did the household member receive? Sex Temporarily migrated Household member Male Female Age (years) Yes No Years of education 1 2 3 4 5 a. Are there any household members who belong to the household but who have migrated permanently? Note that these do not refer to household members who left the household to start their own household some- where else. It refers e.g. to husbands or wives who have migrated permanently with the objective to sent cash to the village. yes no If the answer was yes: ask which people migrated permanently? ............... Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 73 3. Crops cultivated last year a. Did you cultivate any of the crops listed below during the last 12 month (tick if the crop is grown) b. How much land have you cultivated with each of these crops? c. From which crops harvested during the last 12 months did you sell a part? (tick `yes' or `no'). If crops are sold, ask whether the money earned is managed by the men or women. If the household budget is managed equally by the men and women, tick both cells `men' and `women'. (c.2) (b) (c.1) Income managed by Land cultivated Sold whom? (a) Crop Crops cultivated during code the last 12 months Amount Unit Yes No Men Women 1 2 3 d. How much land do you own or have permanent or for? ........................(unit) e. How much land do you rent or sharecrop in? ........................(unit) Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 4. Livestock a. Does the household own livestock or animals? Does the household own livestock? Yes No Continue with question 4b-d only if the household owns livestock! b. How much livestock does the household currently own? (mark the category indicating the number of live- stock owned) c. How much livestock did the household own 12 months ago (mark the category indicating the number of livestock owned) (b) How much livestock does the household currently own? Livestock 1­2 3­5 6­10 More than 10 1. cattle 2. dairy cattle 3. traction livestock (e.g. mule, horse, oxen) 4. goats/sheep 5. poultry 74 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A (c) How much livestock did the household own one year ago? Livestock 1­2 3­5 6­10 More than 10 1. cattle 2. dairy cattle 3. traction livestock (e.g. mule, horse, oxen) 4. goats/sheep 5. poultry Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 5. Fisheries a. Does the household engage in fishing activities? Does the household engage in fishing activities? Yes No Is the household a member of a fishing group? Yes No Continue with question 6b-d only if the household engages in fishing activities! a. Which type of fish do you catch? b. Did you sell any fresh fish during the last 12 months? c. Did you process (clean, dry or smoke) and sell any fish during the last 12 months? (c) (d) Sold Process and sell Fish (b) code Fish species Yes No Yes No Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 75 6. Major Assets Owned a. Which of the listed assets does the household own? b. If you own these assets, how many do you own? c. If you own these assets, how many years ago did you purchase them? (a) If (a) is yes: Assets owned (b) Item yes no Number of assets owned plow hoe Axe sickle shovel fishing equipment Jewellery cart improved stove Radio Bicycle/moped iron roofed house Kitchen house If (a) is yes: (c) Item When purchased? gas/petrol stove Refrigerator stable for livestock cellphone television Boat house built of bricks car other........................................ other....................................... Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 76 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A 7. Importance of hazards endangering livelihood a. Have you experienced in your lifetime periods which are characterized by more or less favourable rainfall or temperature? (tick yes or no) b. If you experienced the hazard, can you indicate when this has taken place or do you know of important events that have taken place during those periods? (present the year(s) or describe the event in such a way that the year can be determined by us) (a) Climate variability related hazards If (a) is yes Hazard (b) code Hazards Yes No Years/period event took place 1 less rainfall during the rainy season leading to droughts 2 periods of prolonged drought, leading to crops drying out or livestock not having sufficient water. 3 Excess rainfall leading to floods 4 too heavy showers leading to damage to crops, livestock and property 5 periods of extreme temperatures, leading to scorched crops c. Do you recall any major periods of drought or flood in the past 30 years that have substantially changed the lives of many people in the area and which have caused large changes in the way people till their land or earn a living? ............................................................................................................................................................................. ............................................................................................................................................................................. ............................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................... Note to interviewers: check to what extent this corresponds with the hazards given in question 7a. d. Describe in your own words the major climate related hazards you are facing in your daily activities. ............................................................................................................................................................................. ............................................................................................................................................................................. ............................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................... Note to interviewers: check to what extent this corresponds with the hazards given in question 7a. e. In the last 12 months, were there any periods in which the household experienced difficulties to sufficiently feed all household members? If there were such periods, which months were difficult? e.1 Experience any difficult periods last year? Yes No e.2 Which months were difficult? jan feb march april may june july aug sept oct nov dec d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 77 f. For those climate related hazards that you have experienced, to what extent did you experience effects in your activities? (0 = not applicable, 1 = a lot less, 2 = less, 3 = no change, 4 = more, 5 = a lot more) g. Which household members are affected more by the hazard; the men (m), the women (w) or no difference between them (tick both)? (g) Gender effect (f.1) (f.2) (f.3) (f.5) (f.6) Crop Area cultiva- Live-stock (f.4) Assets Cash (f) Effect of hazard on livelihoods produc-tion ted owned Fish landed owned income Man Women less rainfall during the rainy season leading to droughts periods of prolonged drought, leading to crops drying out or livestock not having sufficient water. Excess rainfall leading to floods too heavy showers leading to damage to crops, livestock and property periods of extreme temperatures, leading to scorched crops h. Rank the hazards given below from the least important (1) to most important (10) (use cards describing the hazards; if necessary use pictures or use stones in which the number of stones given indicates the importance) i. If you compare the situation in the last five years with the period before. Have the hazards become more threatening in the last 5 years? (i) More or less threatening than n the past? (h) Hazards Hazard ranking Yes No drought due to less rainfall during the rainy season drought due to periods of drought during the rainy season floods due to excessive rainfall damage due to excessively heavy showers changed average and extreme temperatures human diseases Animal or crop pests and diseases decreasing soil fertility problems with input purchase or output sales high food prices other: ........................................................................ Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 78 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A 8. Institutions a. With which organizations or groups does your household have contact? b. If you have been in contact with an organization, how often do you have contacts? (1 = never; 2 = occasion- ally; 3 = during the growing season; 4 = a few times per year; 5 = a few times per month; 6 = every week) c. If you have been in contact with the organization, since when have you been contacting the specific institu- tion? (1 = this year; 2 = last year; 3 = five years ago; 4 = ten years ago; 5 = more than 10 years ago) d. Is it possible to link the date since when households are in contact with an institution with the data since when a hazard is experienced as discussed in question 7a (numbered 1 to 5). (1 = Drought due to less rainfall during the rainy season; 2 = Drought due to periods of drought during the rainy season; 3 = Floods due to excessive rainfall; 4 = Damage due to excessively heavy showers; 5 = Changed average and extreme tempera- tures; 6 = other) e. If you have been in contact with the organization, has the help or assistance obtained been helpful to prepare your household for hazards which are a danger for your household? (e) (a) Helpful for In contact (b) (c) (d) adaptation Organization Frequency of contacts Have been in Link to hazards in Hazards Yes No with institutions contact since question 7 Yes No 1. national Authorities 2. Regional Authorities 3. local authorities 4. Extension Agency 5. international donors 6. non-governmental organization 7. cooperatives 8. schools 9. Banks 10. Village communities 11. Religious communities 12. Women's groups 13. micro-finance groups 14. self-help groups 15. Unions 16. other........................... 17. other........................... 9. Major strategies of the household to cope with hazards a. Do you apply the adaptation options given below in order to adapt to the hazards given in the previous ques- tion? Who decided about the strategy change; one of the men or women of the household? b. If the adaptation strategy is adopted, which of the hazards are reduced? (1 = Drought due to less rainfall during the rainy season; 2 = Drought due to periods of drought during the rainy season; 3 = Floods due to excessive rainfall; 4 = Damage due to excessively heavy showers; 5 = Changed average and extreme tempera- tures; 6 = other) (a) (a) Strategy adopted (b) Strategy adopted (b) Which hazards are Which hazards are Strategy type Yes No Men Women reduced? Strategy type Yes No Men Women reduced? A. AgRicUltURAl tEchniQUEs c. diVERsificAtion A1. crop selection 1 2 3 4 5 6 c1.temporal migration to urban 1 2 3 4 5 6 areas or abroad A2. Adapt planting dates 1 2 3 4 5 6 c2. temporal migration to other 1 2 3 4 5 6 rural areas (e.g. plantations) A3. Adapt cropping densities 1 2 3 4 5 6 c3. permanent migration (to other 1 2 3 4 5 6 rural areas, urban areas or abroad) A4. Adapt fertilizer/pesticide 1 2 3 4 5 6 c4. non-timber forest product 1 2 3 4 5 6 application commercialisation A5. Adapt tillage practices 1 2 3 4 5 6 c5. home-garden agriculture 1 2 3 4 5 6 A6. change the pastoral 1 2 3 4 5 6 c6. increase market sales 1 2 3 4 5 6 system (distance and frequency of mobility) A7. change the herd 1 2 3 4 5 6 c7. handicrafts 1 2 3 4 5 6 composition A8. Apply different feed 1 2 3 4 5 6 c8. charcoal or timber sales 1 2 3 4 5 6 techniques, like e.g. zero grazing A9. change from pastoral to 1 2 3 4 5 6 c9. start fisheries 1 2 3 4 5 6 sedentary agricultural system A10. improve food storage 1 2 3 4 5 6 c10. Reduce expenses by 1 2 3 4 5 6 facilities changing consumption (type and d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s number of meals) A11. other ............................. 1 2 3 4 5 6 c11. draw down on livestock, 1 2 3 4 5 6 surpluses or savings B. WAtER mAnAgEmEnt tEchniQUEs d. commUnAl pooling B1. Use water harvesting 1 2 3 4 5 6 d1. Restore and preserve 1 2 3 4 5 6 techniques: roof water homestead or mountain forests to collection, tanks,... reduce erosion B2. improve, construct or 1 2 3 4 5 6 d2. Rangeland preservation and 1 2 3 4 5 6 rehabilitate terraces grazing restrictions B3. Use irrigation 1 2 3 4 5 6 d3. soil erosion prevention 1 2 3 4 5 6 programmes (e.g. community terracing) B4. improve watering sites in 1 2 3 4 5 6 d4. communal water harvesting, 1 2 3 4 5 6 pastoral areas tanks B5. other................................ 1 2 3 4 5 6 d5. communal irrigation 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 d6. other: ..................................... 1 2 3 4 5 6 d7. other: .................................... 1 2 3 4 5 6 79 80 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Observations: ................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 10. Administrative issues date of interview name of interviewer checked by d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 81 App EN di X 2. GU idE FO r prA'S : ThE mE S , S O C iA L G rO U pS , A Nd m E Th O dS Themes and Issues Individuals/Groups to interview Methods the socioeconomic condition of the community social systems ­ kinship, governance, norms/regulations and community leadership (chiefs, semi-structured interviews (ssi); enforcement, esp. in relation to natural resource management magazias, Uc members, Ap) trend analysis social and economic amenities in the community ­ education, community leadership guided Walk (observation); ssi market, water, energy source(s), etc how different people in the community are affected differently by climate change impacts (e. g: landless persons, ethnic minorities, women and other vulnerable groups)? What evidence of climate change is already being observed by chief, magazia, tindaana, Uc, seasonal diagram; ssi the community? ­ (communities' knowledge/perceptions of Ap; fgd with men, women, trends in climate change over the past 20­30 years) youth · seasonal shifts · changes in precipitation patterns and availability of surface water · extreme weather trends ­ (in terms of erratic weather, seasons or other changes in weather patterns) · in terms of disasters What are the most important livelihoods of the (i) community fgd with men, women, youth, ssi members and (ii) of the most vulnerable and poor groups? and the most vulnerable groups like settlers/migrants, the poor, persons with disabilities What are the most important livelihood resources in this fgd with men, women, youth, Resource map & ssi community in general and for the vulnerable groups? and the most vulnerable groups how available are the resources? like settlers/migrants, the poor, Who has access to them? persons with disabilities Who controls them? how are they being used to achieve livelihoods outcomes? What resources and people are most at risk of climate related fgd with men, women, youth, Resource map & ssi hazards and the most vulnerable groups What parts of the community are most vulnerable to the like settlers/migrants, the poor, hazards identified? persons with disabilities Who are the members of the community who are most at risk? Why? Are the hazards different now than they were 20 years ago? how? Vulnerability and the coping/adaptation strategies employed by community members/groups identification of the most vulnerable socioeconomic groups in chiefs; tindaana; fgd with men, Wealth/wellbeing categorization; the community women, youth. ssi What coping/adaptation strategies are currently being fgd with men, women, youth, ssi employed by various members of the community, especially the and the most vulnerable groups most vulnerable? (mobility, risk pooling, storage, diversification, like settlers/migrants, the poor, market exchange etc) persons with disabilities Which are working/which are not working and why? What are the costs and benefits? Which are sustainable? Which social/economic group in the community is vulnerable chief/tindaana & elders; fgd matrix scoring and most at risk of the impact of climate change? with men, women, youth, children · in terms of food security · health/disease burden · migration · access to productive land and water What are the key drivers/underlying causes of vulnerability to chiefs/tindaana & Elders institutional Analysis using climate change? fgd with men, women, youth, scoring Which social beliefs, norms and practices enhance or limit and vulnerable groups adaptive capacity? Which institutions in the community promote or hinder adaptation? And for which vulnerable group? Which power structures enhance or limit access to and control over resources needed to adapt? And for which vulnerable group? policies and institutional capacities and types of support needed 82 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A Themes and Issues Individuals/Groups to interview Methods What policies and institutional capacity exist to facilitate chiefs/tindaana & Elders institutional Analysis adaptation? fgd with men, women, youth, and vulnerable groups · within the community · outside the community · key partners/allies (ngos) What types of support are needed to facilitate adaptation by chiefs/tindaana & Elders ssi & scoring various members of the community? (e.g. interdepartmental fgd with men, women, youth, cooperation, treatment of supplementary benefits, perceptual and vulnerable groups changes, policy priorities): · at the individual or household level · at the community level · for institutional capacity development · for influencing policies (local & national) d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 83 App EN di X 3. v iLLAGE ENTry GUid E For the village level discussions: households to changes in climate. We are interested to know about this village, the work you do, and how you Hello, my name is _________ and these are my earn income throughout the year. We would like to ask colleagues _______. Our team from the Participatory you some questions about this and do some exercise to Development Associates (PDA) Kumasi is here study- understand the main features of your village. The ing livelihoods in the area and the responses of discussion should take a couple of hours. 84 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A App EN di X 4. NO . OF hOUSE hOL d S i N T Erv iE W Ed ( Si T E; i N C O m E Ti Er ; G E Nd Er O F rES p ON dENT ) Gender of respondent Income tier Zone Site No. of household interviewed (High, Medium, Low) Male Female northern tetauku 10 low 7 3 savannah Boayini 10 low 8 2 Total 15 5 transitional Buoyem 10 low 6 4 dzatakpo 10 low 6 4 total 12 8 forest Kamaso 10 low 5 5 gonukrom 10 low 6 4 Total 11 9 coastal Ada-Anyakpor 10 low 4 6 nima 10 low 7 3 Total 20 11 9 grand Total 80 49 31 d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 85 App EN di X 5. NO . OF FOCUS GrOU p d i S C U S Si O N S h E Ld Number of Participants Site Date visited Groups met Men women Total tetauku 18 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 20 15 35 elders, vulnerable groups Boayini 20 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 25 15 40 elders, vulnerable groups Buoyem 18 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 21 15 36 elders, vulnerable groups dzatakpo 20 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 24 12 36 elders, vulnerable groups Kamaso 20 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 22 16 38 elders, vulnerable groups gonukrom 18 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 24 13 37 elders, vulnerable groups Ada-Anyakpor 18 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 26 18 44 elders, vulnerable groups nima 21 ­ 05 ­ 09 community (men and women groups), chief and 25 17 42 elders, vulnerable groups 86 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A App EN di X 6. LiST OF KE y iNFOrm A N T i N T Erv iE W S W iTh d AT E S Site Date visited Key informants tetauku 19 ­ 05 ­ 09 community elder Boayini 21 ­ 05 ­ 09 chief and linguist Buoyem 19 ­ 05 ­ 09 chief and elder dzatakpo 22 ­ 05 ­ 09 chief and linguist Kamaso 20 ­ 05 ­ 09 community elder gonukrom 23 ­ 05 ­ 09 community elder Ada-Anyakpor 20 ­ 05 ­ 09 chief and linguist nima 22 ­ 05 ­ 09 chief and linguist d E V E l o p m E n t A n d c l i m At E c h A n g E d i s c U s s i o n pA p E R s 87 App EN di X 7. SAmp LE p Sd WOr KS hO p AG E N d A Participatory Scenario Development Workshop Agenda Accra, Ghana Day 1 8:30­9:00 Registration 9:00­9:30 Welcome and introductions 9:30­10:00 introduction to the EAcc study 10:00­10:30 socioeconomic trends and projections 10.30­10.45 Break 10:45­11.15 overview of climate change and impacts presentation and plenary discussion 11:15­12:15 Vulnerability and climate change impacts plenary 12.15­13.15 lunch 13:15­14:45 identification of current & future Adaptation options plenary discussion group Activity 14.45­15.15 developing Adaptation pathways group Activity 15.45­16.00 Break 16.00­17:00 group presentations on Adaptation pathways Day 2 9:00­9:15 Welcome Back & opening Remarks 9.15­10:15 Adaptation: An integrated pathway for ghana plenary discussion group Activity 10:15­10:30 Break 10.30­11:15 linking development & Adaptation plenary discussion 11:00­11:30 summary & next steps for the EAcc study presentation 11:30­12.00 closing Remarks & Workshop Evaluation 12.00­12.30 Break 88 t hE s ociA l d imE nsions of Ad AptAtion to c limAtE ch A ng E in g hA n A App EN di X 8. rAiNFALL TOTALS FO r SE L E C T Ed S TATi O N S Wenchi: Transition Bolgatanga: Savannah Axim: Forest Ada: Coastal Year Total rainfall Total rainfall Total rainfall Total rainfall 1960 1639.2 2436.1 979.3 1961 965.8 2179.3 1044.2 1962 1532 2515.1 1491.4 1963 1622.1 3332.1 992.9 1964 1087.6 1704.5 597.9 1965 1241.8 2930.7 838.1 1966 1209.4 1626.5 819 1967 1123.7 1747.5 1057.5 1968 1757.7 3035 1696.4 1969 1387.2 2336.3 619.9 1970 1016.3 1870.9 965.2 1971 1427.1 1802.8 887.2 1972 1345 1943.3 877.8 1973 1186.7 1860.4 1118.2 1974 1017.4 2759.4 1330.4 1975 1179.6 728.4 1967.8 947.1 1976 1285.4 3035.3 2174.5 534.7 1977 1158.9 764.4 1200.6 373.1 1978 1140.9 961.4 2495.5 601.7 1979 1148.4 967.5 2949.3 574.4 1980 1259.8 776.3 2125.7 673.1 1981 1311.8 742.2 1811.6 805.7 1982 591.1 930.5 2253.6 1247.5 1983 841.4 927.5 1071 539.7 1984 1025.9 776 1985 726.9 1985 1340 880.4 1832.8 665.6 1986 1169.5 887.8 2050.1 495.8 1987 1250.7 900.1 2748.1 931 1988 1209.6 979.2 1788.9 798.3 1989 1726.3 1230.7 1533.8 949.9 1990 1014.4 755.9 1385.1 655.9 1991 1408.3 1158.1 1768.3 1298.1 1992 1285.7 946 1847.6 359.2 1993 1212.4 1001 2355.2 759.3 1994 918.6 1041.3 2318.8 700.9 1995 1372.6 869.6 1663.2 859.2 1996 1155.7 1306.8 2161.3 992.3 1997 1019.8 953.4 2031.3 1191.2 1998 1052.7 951.8 1169.2 484.4 1999 1288.8 1165.7 1886 716 2000 1187 1000.9 1425 394.3 2001 987 985.8 1862.5 634.6 2002 1413 879.1 2310.5 842.6 2003 1396.4 960.5 1999.4 1061.9 2004 1349.7 827.3 1819.6 587.2 2005 1330.2 877.3 1980.9 779.3 2006 1210 461.4 1407.8 2007 1217.3 2331.2