The Ghana Model for Resilience Enhancement in Semiarid Ghana: Conceptualization and Social Implementation

Many government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and academic and research institutions have over the past two decades conducted studies and implemented actions aimed at developing frameworks, models, and tools to assess the resilience to climate and ecosystem changes of vulnerable communities. However, actions and studies encompassing empirical field tests of the assessment instruments are relatively few. This chapter reports the outcomes of an empirically applied resilience assessment framework, hereafter referred to as the “Ghana Model,” which was initiated as part of the “Enhancing Resilience to Climate and Ecosystem Changes in Semi-Arid Africa: An Integrated Approach (CECAR-Africa)” project, implemented in Ghana’s semiarid ecosystem. The chapter provides a concise description of the “Ghana Model” as an integrated resilience assessment framework as underpinned by seven principles while highlighting the concrete actions and steps taken in operationalizing it. As a clinically valid approach for resilience assessment, the Ghana Model provides valuable evidence to aid decision and policymakers in Ghana in designing and implementing adaptation strategies for climate change in vulnerable communities and households. As a resilience assessment template, it can be applied in other ecosystems within other sub-Saharan African countries as well as other developing economies. The Ghana Model can enrich ongoing discourse on global sustainability as well as provide relevant output toward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.