ghana climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment

8. ADAPTING TO CLIMATECHANGE IN GHANA: CASESTUDIES FROM THECOASTAL AND NORTHERNSAVANNA REGIONSINTRODUCTIONAdaptation to climate change in Ghana calls for measures that reduce the vulnerability of natural resourcesand people to its impacts, increase people’s ability to adapt to the long-term challenges posed by climatechange (their adaptive capacity), and strengthen people’s ability to absorb, cope with, and recover fromunexpected changes that result (resilience) (following Ensor and Berger, 2009). To promote climate changeadaptation, it is necessary to: 1) understand what the biophysical effects of climate change have been and areexpected to be in specific places (e.g., increased drought, unreliable rainfall, rising sea levels, flooding); and2) understand the nature of social and environmental vulnerability in a given place, including how and whypeople may be susceptible to the adverse effects of climate change. Thus, adaptation strategies are most likelyto be effective if they are developed using a community-based approach that takes into account the localcircumstances of specific communities.Two case studies of climate change adaptation are presented in this chapter: one from coastal Ghana, and onefrom the northern Guinea and Sudan savanna ecological zones, which include the Upper East, Upper West,and Northern administrative regions. The adaptation strategies described in these case studies are not meantto be prescriptive; instead, they provide examples of how climate change is being experienced in parts ofGhana that USAID has expressed a particular interest in, and of approaches to adaptation that are currentlyunderway in some communities or that could potentially be pursued.Figures 8.1 and 8.2 indicate the percentage of Ghana’s population employed mainly in agriculture, huntingand forestry, and fishing by district across Ghana. It is evident that the Upper East, Upper West, andNorthern administrative regions – generally corresponding to the Sudan and Guinea savanna ecological zones– have among the highest percentages of the population employed in agriculture, hunting, and forestry inGhana. Similarly, the Coastal Savanna Zone has a high percentage of the population employed in fishing.Thus, our focus in this chapter is on rural livelihoods in the context of climate change with an emphasis onfood security, in line with USAID’s planned investments in food security in Ghana through the Feed theFuture program. We assume that a main goal of climate change adaptation in these zones is to ensuresustainable livelihoods – defined as the capabilities, assets, and activities required to make a living in a mannerthat is resilient to stresses and shocks, and that maintains or enhances these capabilities, assets, and activitieswithout undermining the natural resource base (Scoones, 1998). The areas discussed in these case studiesdeserve special attention for potential investments in climate change adaptation because climate change inGhana is predicted to have significant impacts on coastal areas and on the dryland, northern savanna regions;144 GHANA CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT