Rural Considerations (Asynchronous Session)
Climate Change Impacts on the Vulnerable Groups in Uganda: A Test Case of Mountain Elgon, Bududa District
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kanakulya Lawrence
Climate change is being experienced in many parts of Uganda, including the Mount Elgon region, in various forms such as rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, increased frequency and intensity of droughts and floods, declining in quantity and quality of water resources, reduced agricultural productivity, spread of vector borne diseases to new areas and heavier storms. Climate change poses serious problems with far reaching social, political, economic, and environmental consequences, particularly in least developed countries characterized by low adaptive capacities. Landslides are likely to affect mountain areas more than other areas of Uganda due to old soils and weak rocks and the limited capacities of communities to cope with climate change impacts. In March 2010, following unusually heavy rains, landslides occurred in the Bududa District of the Mount Elgon region. Landslides buried three whole villages and caused numerous deaths. Hundreds of households were displaced, two primary schools were destroyed and the main health centre serving the area was severely damaged. In 2011, the district of Bulambuli was also strongly affected by landslides, which destroyed homes and crops. Poverty, deforestation, soil erosion and poor local knowledge on disaster preparedness exacerbate the harm caused by landslides and floods. despite existing policy actions on disaster risk reduction (DRR), many community members in Bududa still continue to settle in high-risk areas re-zoned for non-settlement. This study considers the apparent information asymmetry on expectations between the community and government.
Farmer and Herder Conflict Dynamics in Ghana: The Role of Environmental Scarcity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniel, Kofi Banini
In West Africa, sedentary crop farmers (farmers) and pastoral herders (herders) have coexisted for many centuries. However, in the past two decades, conflicts between these two groups keep rising steadily across the subregion, in sharp contrast to the symbiotic relationship that farmers and herders had enjoyed. This project a) probes the conflict dynamics across West Africa in terms of their setting and intensity. It engages the literature on the climate and conflict nexus to propose theoretical mechanisms underpinning the clashes and used empirical qualitative evidence from a sample of 40 detailed interviews conducted in the hotspots in Ghana to explicate these clashes. First, it argues that farmer-herder tensions are resource conflicts, a factor ignored by prior studies. Second, it probes how common pool resource-use (C.P.R) regimes regulate and alter the conflict processes. The study describes how rangelands and small water management practices interact with resource use and evaluate the implications of different user stratifications on the conflicts. The analysis focus on the effects of climate change, focusing on changes in resource availability, contrasting cases of abundance, and scarcity.
Hunger Crises in Ghana: A Case Study of Impediments to Women Farmers' Capacity to Respond to Climate Impacts View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Patricia Glazebrook, Emmanuel Opoku
In 2015, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported that 27% of the world's hungry live in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, families largely depend on women's subsistence farming to meet daily food security needs. In Ghana’s Upper Eastern Region, over 28% of the population has been experiencing severe or moderate food insecurity since 2012. The purpose of this paper is to examine women farmers’ situations in northeast Ghana to document the gender biases that exacerbate their capacity to respond to climate impacts on their farming. Methods include examination of policy documents and academic literature, and field research collected longitudinally from 2007 to 2020, including interviews, focus groups, observation, and participatory rural appraisals (transect walks, informal mapping, and daily/seasonal/annual work charting) with women farmers, as well as interviews with national and regional policy decision-makers and implementers. Interviews, focus groups, and policy analysis are also used to assess women’s access to and participation in a $8.3 million USD United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Adaptation Fund grant implemented in the region from 2016 to 2020. Analysis identifies social and economic impediments, i.e., recalcitrant local gender bias, disproportionate workloads, invisibility of labor, and lack of access to land tenure, extension technologies and financial support. Implications are that women’s agricultural adaptation strategies are hampered by poverty and exclusion from support systems, and that women have reduced access to climate finance because local biases extend and complicate the gap between planning at the national level and implementation locally.
Climate Change and Mental Health Risks: Implications for Smallholder Farmers’ Food Security in Ghana View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Samuel Weniga Anuga, Ulrike Grote
Climate change is regarded as one of the biggest global health problems, and future projections suggest an unacceptably high and potentially catastrophic risk to human health. Climate change affects human health through a wide range of hazardous exposures, including extreme weather events, altered air quality, shifting patterns of infectious disease, as well as sea-level rise, ocean acidification, conflict, and migration. The role of climate change in driving mental health including emotional concerns is increasingly recognized yet understudied. In semi-arid Ghana, extreme climatic events have subjected farmers to different mental health experiences. Our study evaluates the impacts of climate change on mental health and subsequently draws inferences on the implication for food security in Ghana. Employing an Affective Style Emotional Regulation Approach to a survey of 200 households, we find that respondents are concealing their emotions in response to climate-induced challenges. Consequently, they are developing occupational stress, anxiety, a feeling of hopelessness, and depression. Food production goals are not achieved limiting food access, utilization, and stability for rural households. We recommend the capacity building of community mental health personnel to support mental adaptation. Also, public awareness building against stigmatization could help in the identification and treatment of mental health persons.
