Developing a Community-Based Resilience Assessment Model with reference to Northern Ghana

Abstract

Faced with adversarial climatic and physical conditions and an inept socioeconomic development priorities, Northern Ghana remains one of the regions that are most vulnerable to climate-related shocks and disturbances in semi-arid Africa. Because of the effect of frequent floods, droughts, and bushfires, entire livelihoods in Ghana's predominantly smallholder agricultural population are under threat. In this paper, we present a model for community-based resilience assessment. This model was developed through an experiment conducted in selected rural communities in the Tolon and Wa West Districts in the Northern and Upper West Regions of Ghana. This experiment underpinned an ongoing five-year collaborative research project, Climate and Ecosystem Change Adaptation and Resilience Research in Semi-Arid Africa: AnIntegrated Approach (CECAR-Africa), and involved researchers and scientists from institutions in Ghana and Japan. Drawing on the findings from extensive literature review, field surveys, focus group discussions, unstructured interviews with various stakeholders, and participatory observations, we developed a matrix for assessing the different categories of community 1 United Nations University-Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), Tokyo, Japan 2 University for Development Studies, Wa and Tamale, Ghana. 3 University of Ghana, Department of Geography and Resource Development, Legon, Accra, Ghana 4 United Nations University-Institute for Natural Resource in Africa (UNU-INRA), Accra, Ghana 5 Ghana Meteorological Agency, Accra, Ghana. 6 The University of Tokyo, Todai Institute for Advanced Study, Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S), Tokyo, Japan. resilience (ecological, engineering, and socioeconomic). The outcome of this resilience matrix, herein called an "integrated" assessment model, offers a mix of factors that could improve societal reorganization when faced with shocks or disturbances. The integrated model provides a workable assessment criteria and key indicators for community level resilience assessments. This experiment proved valuable and highly effective in selecting case study communities for CECAR-Africa. The next step will involve the testing and development of similar criteria and indicators to measure household level resilience.

The role of traditional ecological knowledge in ecosystem services management: the case of four rural communities in Northern Ghana

“…Yoggu and Kpalgun lie on a relative flat and level landscape. Compared to Baluefili and Bankpama communities, Yoggu and Kpalgun are considered to be drought prone (Antwi et al 2014). Baleufili and Bankpama, on the other hand, are located on a fairly uneven elevation and undulating landscape.…”

Can an innovation platform support a local process of climate-smart agriculture implementation? A case study in Cauca, Colombia

“…For productivity, we decided to consider caloric self-sufficiency as a proxy for food utilization and benefit/cost ratio of the farm as a proxy of both food economic access and income. Adaptation is probably the most challenging pillar generally assessed in the literature in terms of improved resilience, which itself includes various dimensions such as socioeconomic, ecological, or engineering resilience (Antwi et al 2014). Engineering resilience relates more specifically to the reorganization capacity of farm production factors (e.g., soil, water, crops).…”

“…Engineering resilience relates more specifically to the reorganization capacity of farm production factors (e.g., soil, water, crops). Given the practices prioritized by farmers (composting, water harvesting, and home gardens), we focused on indicators related to engineering resilience (Antwi et al 2014), such as the water and nutrient self-sufficiencies of the farm. We considered the partial supply of water (from rainfall and the water harvesting technologies tested) and nutrient (from mineral and organic fertilizers) for the different crops of the farm.…”

Provisioning ecosystem services-sharing as a coping and adaptation strategy among rural communities in Ghana's semi-arid ecosystem

“…A district represents a secondlevel administrative sub-division below the level of region in Ghana (Institute of Local Government Studies, 2010). The sites were selected on the basis of: (i) the fact that they are part of six communities that have been purposely identified and used as focal areas for the international interdisciplinary project on climate and ecosystem changes, called 'Enhancing Resilience to Climate and Ecosystem Changes in Semi-arid Africa: An Integrated Approach (CECAR Africa)'; and (ii) their proneness and high vulnerability to episodic drought conditions during the long dry season (Antwi et al, 2014). The Yoggu and Kpalgun communities are located approximately five kilometres apart and are accessible by gravel road from Tolon, the district capital.…”