pdf3 MB

Action Research on Local Adaptive Capacity in ALP Communities in Northern Ghana

This report sets out the findings of a study which aimed to understand how community members in two rural communities in northern Ghana are responding to climate change, how those responses have changed over time, to what people attribute those changes, and what drivers and barriers exist which prevent or enable people to strengthen their adaptive capacity. The two communities, Farfar in Ghana’s Upper East Region, and Kanyini, in Ghana’s Upper West Region, have both been targeted by the Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP). In each community, distinctions were made according to gender and age, as well as intersectional contours, such as between members of asset-rich households and those from asset-poor households.

As an analytical framework, the study employs the Local Adaptive Capacity Framework developed by the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA-LAC). The ACCRA-LAC Framework stresses that adaptive capacity is determined not only by what people have (asset base), but how people are able to use what they have. The ACCRA-LAC Framework therefore defines adaptive capacity as a function of the asset base, access to knowledge and information, institutions and entitlements, capacity to innovate and finally, flexible and forward-thinking decision-making and governance. Not only does the study use this framework to make sense of how people are responding to climatic change and variation (and how this is changing), but the study also reflects on the ACCRA-LAC Framework itself.

Download a policy brief highlighting key messages from the study:

Adaptive Capacity Enables Climate Resilience: Insights from two communities in Northern Ghana

pdf584 KB
Download