IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v14y2017i7p749-d104187.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges and Opportunities for Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation into WaSH Development Planning in Ghana

Author

Listed:
  • Salley Alhassan

    (International Water Centre, Australia, Oz Green Youth Leading the World (YLTW)-Africa Program, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Berekum 233, Ghana)

  • Wade L. Hadwen

    (Australian Rivers Institute and Griffith Climate Change Response Program, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QSD 4111, Australia)

Abstract

Climate change threatens water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) facilities and services, as these are intimately linked to the water cycle and are vulnerable to changes in the quantity and quality of available water resources. Floods and droughts, which pollute and reduce water delivery respectively, have now become a perennial issue to deal with in the northern regions of Ghana. This study aimed to assess the degree to which climate change adaptation measures are mainstreamed into the water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) development planning process in Ghana. Stakeholders from government and non-government agencies were interviewed to gain perspectives on the threat of climate change, the inclusion of climate change in WaSH planning and the barriers preventing mainstreaming. Despite awareness of climate change, adaptation measures have not been considered, and the immediate WaSH needs remain the priority. Overall, stakeholders felt the adaptive capacity of the Municipality was low and that mainstreaming has not yet occurred. Despite the lack of progress, there are great opportunities for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into planning through increasing awareness and capacity, legislative and institutional changes and the development of participatory systems to provide early warning systems and disaster risk analyses that will inform future planning.

Suggested Citation

  • Salley Alhassan & Wade L. Hadwen, 2017. "Challenges and Opportunities for Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation into WaSH Development Planning in Ghana," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-20, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:7:p:749-:d:104187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/749/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/749/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anastasia Mortimer & Iftekhar Ahmed & Thomas Johnson & Liyaning Tang & Margaret Alston, 2023. "Localizing Sustainable Development Goal 13 on Climate Action to Build Local Resilience to Floods in the Hunter Valley: A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Litao Feng & Zhuo Li & Zhihui Zhao, 2021. "Extreme Climate Shocks and Green Agricultural Development: Evidence from the 2008 Snow Disaster in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-22, November.
    3. Eka Dyana Yulandari & Takehiko Murayama & Shigeo Nishikizawa, 2023. "Climate change adaptation through policy integration by local governments in Indonesia," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 1-18, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:7:p:749-:d:104187. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.