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This study examines household responses to livelihood transformation in the Kumasi peri-urban area. The main tools used in the data collection are household survey, key informants interviews and focus group discussions. Quantitative data are presented using tables, graphs and charts while direct quotations from respondents are used to present qualitative data. The study identifies both farm and non-farming livelihood strategies as the main livelihood strategies households adopt in the study communities. The study shows that most households rarely depend on one strategy to survive. However, non-farming households have more diversified livelihood strategies than farming households. The social network support base is also identified to play a very important role in the livelihood of respondents. Since farming still remains a very important component of livelihood strategies in the communities, some form of sanity needs to be injected in the land market. The study thus recommends a speed up work on the urban policy while the land policy needs to be fully implemented. The Land Administration Project must also be fast-tracked to bring harmony in the land market. Moreover, interventions to provide alternative means of livelihood to farmers who have lost their farm lands due to urbanisation can be made. Building the capacity of the peri-urban poor through skills training and access to credit and infrastructure facilities is a viable option. This will ensure a proper integration of peri-urban dwellers into urban monetary economy.

Between 2008 and 2016, more than 50,000 Chinese citizens migrated to Ghana to mine gold on small-scale concessions. This is particularly surprising given that small-scale mining is an activity reserved for Ghanaian citizens. Foreign gold mining is mediated by various intersecting political economic and geopolitical shifts, including unprecedented gold demand, economic crisis, and informal conditions to Chinese loans. Based on long-term, mixed-methods fieldwork, and drawing from feminist geopolitics research, we argue Ghana’s recent gold rush portends gendered implications for bodies in rural areas. We center our discussion on bodies to demonstrate the ways extractive practices increase vulnerability among women and children, including teen pregnancy and mercury exposure. Yet, women also contest foreign mining and its myriad implications (e.g., refusing to sell land and entering sites while menstruating despite being “forbidden” to do so). A feminist geopolitics perspective allows the tracing of specific political economic processes (Chinese monetary policies, informal loan conditions) to other sites (Pokukrom, the pregnant teen), thereby enabling a clearer understanding of how supportive interventions might occur.

This study examines the effects of urbanisation in three peri-urban communities in Kumasi. Structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions are used as data collection tools. The study reveals that urbanisation has presented constraints and opportunities to the peri-urban communities. Peri-urbanism has led to agricultural land use giving way to residential land use, with a reduction in population engaged in agriculture. As arable land reduces, agriculture as a source of livelihood has diminished. While agriculture has declined and is in the process of being modified, new livelihood types have evolved. Overall, peri-urbanism has been a blessing, affecting livelihoods positively. The study recommends a speedy implementation of the urban policy which is at the draft stage. Promoting vertical development to protect prime agricultural lands and avert dangers of food insecurity is the way forward. To succeed however, peri-urban dwellers, urban developers and planners, city authorities, traditional rulers and all stake holders must come on-board.

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