Households’ Coping Strategies in Drought- and Flood-Prone Communities in Northern Ghana

Abstract

This study seeks to explore stakeholders’ perceptions, causes, and effects of extreme climatic events, such as droughts and floods, in the Wa West District of Ghana’s Upper West Region. A multi-stage sampling procedure is used to select 184 respondents. Data collection methods include individual questionnaire administration, focus group discussions, and a stakeholders’ forum in the Wa West District Assembly. While frequencies are used to show respondents’ perceptions of the severity of climate change effects, a treatmenteffect model is used to determine the factors influencing farmers’ choices of on-farm coping strategies over off-farm activities in both periods of drought and flood. Findings are the following: farmers perceive that climate change is real and has severe consequences. Consequently, they resort to both on-farm and off-farm strategies to cope with the effects of climate change. While men mostly adopt the former, women adopt the latter. Both strategies are, however, not viable for taking them out of poverty, though offfarm activities are more effective. Education and extension services are other important factors influencing the choice of coping strategies as well as farmers’ welfare. Farmers must be supported with more viable income-earning activities, ones that can take them out of poverty. Women should be given priority. Access to education and extension services must also be stepped up to facilitate the adoption of the coping strategies and to increase welfare.

Dealing with climate change in semi-arid Ghana: understanding intersectional perceptions and adaptation strategies of women farmers

“…The use of agrochemical inputs and irrigation schemes is low among all the socially differentiated groups of women farmers. The also participated in alternative livelihoods such as trading and processing to support themselves and their households (Lolig et al 2014). Marital status influenced the choice of adaptation strategy and the commonly adopted ones were switching to early maturing varieties, crop farming and livestock, changing planting dates and the use of compost.…”

Traditional and Local Knowledge Practices for Disaster Risk Reduction in Northern Ghana

“…An important shortcoming, however, of the present approach to disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the context of the studied area has been the shortage of opportunities to apply traditional knowledge and local practices of disaster-prone communities in mitigating and reducing the impact of such disasters [8].These efforts have often been undertaken by the Government of Ghana in collaboration with other stakeholders, ranging from local to international nongovernmental organizations and international development cooperation [6]. A key feature of these DRR efforts is that the majority of them have been reactionary, with only a few being anticipatory [9,10], and they have been largely driven by formal disaster management agencies in the public and private sectors. Nonetheless, these efforts, which were aimed at minimizing risks and enhancing household and community resilience, have been useful in many situations.…”

Climate Variability: Cocoa Farmers Perception and Coping Strategies, Suaman District of Ghana as the Focal Point

“…Following the examples of Lolig et al [13] using treatment effect model to simultaneously estimate the adoption and welfare models, the estimation of the adoption model enabled them to know factors that influence the choice of a coping strategy whiles the welfare model measured the effects of the choice of a coping strategy on household welfare as well as other determinants of welfare. …”