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Environmental Change, Livelihood Diversification and Local Knowledge in North-Eastern Ghana

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Selected Themes in African Development Studies

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Abstract

In Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the most daunting challenges of development is how to address the vulnerability of livelihoods to environmental change, including climate change and land degradation. Livelihood diversification is very often discussed as a strategy for reducing livelihood vulnerability to such change, but the dynamics and policy implications are seldom explored adequately. This chapter explores the patterns associated with livelihood diversification for reducing vulnerability to environmental change in the Atankwidi basin, north-eastern Ghana from a three generational and gender perspective. Empirical data from in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and a survey of 131 randomly sampled households show mixed and dynamic patterns in diversification. These include increasing diversification of household livelihood portfolios, a declining trend in the number of spouses engaged in subsistence agriculture and an increasing trend in the number of spouses engaged in trade. The author argues that the patterns and dynamics of livelihood diversification for addressing vulnerability are akin to an Endogenous Development (ED) approach. Livelihood diversification draws on local resources and proceeds with subsistence agriculture as the primary livelihood of the household and an embodiment of the local knowledge of the people. To this end, incorporating environmental change adaptation planning that address challenges of subsistence agriculture, trade and handcrafts through District Development Planning (DDP) is appropriate in Ghana.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Kassena-Nankana District was split into Kassena-Nankana West District and Kassena Nakana East District in 2008 following a new government policy to increase the number of districts in the country. The study was conducted in 2008, at the time the district was split into two without boundaries except for distribution of communities between the two districts. Thus, for the sake of convenience, Kassena-Nankana Districts (KNDs) is used in this paper to refer to the two new created districts.

  2. 2.

    A ‘hazard’ is a dangerous phenomenon or condition that may cause harm, loss of life, loss of livelihoods and social or economic disruption (UNISDR 2009: 7). Hazard is used here to refer to hazards of natural origin such as desertification, land degradation and drought.

  3. 3.

    Some sociologists conceive of institutions less in terms of fixed rules and more in terms of practices; and that some action and practices serve to reproduce structures, but also agency, norms and change of established norms over time (Giddens 1984; Bourdeiu 1977).

  4. 4.

    For each household, the three generations comprised the grandfather’s generation, the father’s generation and the son’s generation. The son’s generation refer to the current generation of households whose heads and or spouses were the target respondents in the study.

  5. 5.

    The three generational analyses consider the grandfather’s generation, that is, the grand parents of the present generation as a starting point. Their parents are considered in this analysis as the second generation and the present generation is represented in the analysis as the son’s generation.

  6. 6.

    Pito is a locally brewed alcoholic beverage.

  7. 7.

    Atanga and Abowine are dummy names. The true names of the heads of the families are not represented here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Planning and Management, University for Development Studies, Wa Campus, UPW3, Wa, Upper West Region, Ghana

    Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile

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  1. Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile
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Correspondence to Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Howard College Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Social Sciences, Durban, South Africa

    Lucky Asuelime

  2. Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana Faculty of Social Studies, Accra, Ghana

    Joseph Yaro

  3. Howard College Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Social Sciences, Durban, South Africa

    Suzanne Francis

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Derbile, E.K. (2014). Environmental Change, Livelihood Diversification and Local Knowledge in North-Eastern Ghana. In: Asuelime, L., Yaro, J., Francis, S. (eds) Selected Themes in African Development Studies. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06022-4_8

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