Climate Change Adaptation Mainstreaming at the Sub- National Level Development Planning: A Case of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA), Ghana

Abstract

Climate change has been recognised as a key development issue in sub-Saharan Africa. This might be explained by the region’s peculiar vulnerabilities that could be related to climate change. Climate change is expected to significantly affect food security, increase flooding and droughts in specific areas of the sub-region, affect the production of major export cash crops in Africa and affect the economies and livelihoods with the resultant negative impact on poverty reduction. One major way to offset or reduce the impact of climate change is climate change adaptation mainstreaming in the development planning process. This will acknowledge the expected development challenges posed by climate change and to fashion out strategies to deal with the impacts of climate change. This paper assesses climate change adaptation mainstreaming measures in the development planning process of the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) in Ghana. The research focuses on two Medium-Term Development Plans (MTDP) of the Metropolitan Assembly. The objective is to assess the climate change resilient readiness and adaptation at the sub-national level and to draw local policy makers’ attention of the consequences of ignoring climate change realities.

Keywords: Ghana, Climate Change, Adaptation, Local Level Development Planning, Resilience, ainstreaming