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This paper examines the barriers and adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers in the Northern Development Authority (NDR) zone of Ghana to climate change. The study also investigates the effect of the socio-economic and institutional factors on the on-farm adaptation strategies to climate change of smallholder farmers. The study employs descriptive statistics to analyse the barriers and adaptation techniques of a sample of 125 smallholder farmers in the NDR zone of Ghana. The binary logit model was employed to analyse the effect of the socio-economic and institutional factors on the on-farm adaptation strategies to climate change. The results show that households face considerable availability and liquidity constraints in adapting to climate change. The lack of capacity building program is the major availability constraint, while the lack of funds to purchase fertiliser is the major liquidity constraint. Most farmers do not apply any adaptation technique, while the few farmers who adapt to the changing climate frequently use soil and water conservation and grow different crop varieties and diversification of the crop produced. A number of socio-economic characteristics and institutional factors (particularly governmental extension services), and the longitudinal temperature and rainfall significantly affect the on-farm adaptation strategies of households. Though smallholder farmers in the NDR zone of Ghana apply a multiplicity of on-farm and non-farm adaptation strategies, this research is limited to on-farm adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers. The study recommends that policies aimed at helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change should greatly emphasise on capacity-building programs. Also, investment in extension services to support rural farm households is highly recommended due to the great impact it has on adapting to climate change. This paper contributes to the empirical literature by first using the farm-level survey data from wider geographical areas in the NDR zone of Ghana to analyse the climate change adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers. This paper also focusses on only the on-farm climate change adaptation strategies of households in the NDR zone of Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments in developing countries are christened as proadaptation agents. However, global research effort has virtually ignored inherent adaptation policy implementation nuances in developing countries, ostensibly assuming that narratives from existing policy implementation literature could fill the void. Drawing on qualitative data from six LGs from Ghana, this paper examines the motivation, agenda setting processes and teething challenges constricting the implementation of decentralized climate change adaptation governance in Ghana. Though adherents of decentralization argue that local governments are more likely to conceive and implement proadaptation-related interventions, evidence from Ghana provides fascinating lessons. This paper shows that local governments' ability to mainstream adaptation-related actions into local governance is constricted by taxonomy of local political economy issues and the "science-heaviness" of climate change. It concludes that local government are unlikely to be a fulcrum of adaptation governance as touted if reasonable efforts are not made at strengthening and broadening its resource basket. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While climate change is a global phenomenon, it has significantly stifled agricultural productivity in the Global South due to changes of key atmospheric elements including extreme temperatures and unpredictable rainfall over the last fifty years. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in sub-Saharan Africa where rainfed agriculture is the dominant livelihood strategy, climate change is increasingly undermining rural livelihoods. Despite several policy efforts to improve climate adaptation in this context, smallholders' lack of access to credit constitutes one of the crucial dimensions of climatic vulnerability. Using an ordered logistic regression model, this study analyzed data from a cross-sectional survey (n = 1,100) in the Upper West Region to examine the relationship between smallholder farmers' access to credit and their perceived climate change resilience. Findings show that households with access to credit from informal sources were more likely (OR = 1.73, p ≤ 0.05) to report good resilience compared to those without access. Households that received remittances were also more likely (OR = 3.26, p ≤ 0.001) to report good resilience compared to non-receiving households. Further, households that did not rear any livestock surprisingly emerged more likely (OR = 2.00, p ≤ 0.001) to report good resilience compared to those that reared livestock. On the contrary, households that had experienced any climatic events in the past 12 months before the study were less likely (OR = 0.29, p ≤ 0.01) to report good resilience compared to households that did not experience any events. These findings highlight the potential contribution of informal credit sources to improving rural agricultural productivity and climate change resilience. Informal credit sources may be capable of providing smallholder farmers with the needed access to more flexible financial credit options. The study provides policy recommendations on what might be useful to vulnerable groups, and others in similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate extremes over the years have been a major concern for the globalized world. The hardest hit from these climate extremes are women farmers with low adaptive capacity. This study explored women farmers' perceived indices of occurrence and severity of observed climate extremes in rural Ghana. Employing the qualitative method approach, eight focus group discussions and 15 interviews were conducted with women farmers under Centre for Alleviation of Poverty, Environment and Child Support GROW Project. The study adopted the thematic analytical approach for the data analysis. The results of the study revealed that the occurrence of drought, flood and bush fires has been an annual phenomenon over the past decade. In terms of severity, women farmers also reported that climate extremes, when they occurred, were very intense, especially drought and bush fires. The results further indicated that rainfall and temperature variations were markedly observed with the prediction of rainfall in particular becoming extremely difficult. Evidently, women farmers observed that climate extremes were caused by deforestation, bush fires and neglect of veneration of ancestral spirits. Importantly, the study found that women have devised their own means of responding to climate extremes to include support networks, savings and spiritual assistance from ancestors for rain when there was prolonged drought. The study recommends the need for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ministry of Environment Science and Technology to forecast and display information on the yearly occurrence and severity of drought, flood and bush fires to complement women's local knowledge in decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change projections show worsening climatic conditions and impacts. At the same time, current and future forecasts of climate impacts are not gender neutral. Within a gendered perspective, this study examines the climate vulnerability of households in northern Ghana and estimated the effects of livelihood diversification on climate vulnerability levels. A total of 619 respondents from 432 farm households were selected through a multistage sampling procedure. The data were analysed using Livelihood Vulnerability Index with equal weighting and unequal weighting through principal component analysis. From the result, female household heads were most vulnerable to climate change, followed by female spouses and male heads. There was a statistically significant difference between gender vulnerability levels. Livelihood diversification has the potential of reducing climate vulnerability by 2.6–5.7%, 2.2–5.9% and 2.1–4.7% among male heads, female spouses and female heads, respectively. However, livelihood diversification increases climate vulnerability gaps between males and females. In conclusion, this study confirmed that women in northern Ghana are most vulnerable to climate change. Although livelihood diversification may reduce climate vulnerability, it would not address gendered climate vulnerability differences. Hence, livelihood diversification cannot be a sufficient condition for addressing gendered climate vulnerabilities but only a necessary condition. The study recommends that beyond enhancing livelihood diversification amidst climate change, deliberate climate efforts must be directed towards women, and fundamental gender discriminations such as stereotyping and social discrimination must be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of deepened situations of changing climate, a clear understanding of the perceived impacts and adaptation of climate variability and change on livelihoods of vegetable farmers in Western and Eastern Africa, which is not readily available, is critical for sustainable vegetable production in Africa. Development planning for climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment was utilised in the study. Using multi-stage sampling procedure, 193 vegetable farmers in selected sites prominent for vegetable production from Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria were used. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and linear regression at α0.05. Awareness of climate variability and change was high among most respondents from the three countries, but highest among respondents from Uganda (78.3%). Awareness was highest for long dry spell ( x ¯ = 1.90) and drought ( x ¯ = 1.81) and lowest for harmful gas emissions ( x ¯ = 0.76). Changes in climate variability and trends were perceived to be highest in terms of flood volume/damage caused by flood to farmlands in Nigeria ( x ¯ = 3.85) and Uganda ( x ¯ = 5.0), but in terms of increased temperature for Ghana ( x ¯ = 4.93). Impact of climate-related changes on vegetable farming was high in Ghana (98.3%) and Nigeria (46.6%) but low in Uganda (5.0%). Awareness (β = 0.14), perception (β = 0.15) use of adaptation strategies (β = 0.10) and household size (β = − 0.19) predicted change in perceived impact of climate variability among vegetable farmers. Vegetable farmers in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda are affected differently by climate variability. Farmers in these countries also have different priorities for adaptation strategies. Locality-specific climate adaptation strategies would help ease farmers burden due to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study determined the social vulnerability index (SoVI) of households to climate change impacts for three identified locations (upper, mid and lower) in the Vea catchment, semi-arid Ghana. This study adapted the social, economic and demographic indicator approach. The data used were obtained from a survey of 186 randomly sampled farm households and direct field measurements of 738 farm plots belonging to the same sampled farm households. Information from the literature, expert judgement and principal component analysis were useful for computing and analysing the SoVI. The variables were normalized, weighted and subsequently recombined to determine the index of the three locations towards climate change. Although the SoVI to climate change was highest (0.77) for the upper part of the catchment, the mid- and lower parts of the catchment show a high SoVI of 0.72 each. The overall SoVI for the catchment is 0.73. The study re-emphasizes the high vulnerability level of dry areas to climate change. Moreover, it shows there is variability at micro-scale. There is a need to put appropriate measures to address the vulnerability of households to climate change in the semi-arid areas of West Africa. Factors aggravating dry land’s vulnerability towards climate change should be prevented with implementable policies. Furthermore, it is important to identify conditions that have made some areas less vulnerable to climate change, and then, we can work out the possibility of adapting such to the vulnerable places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]