caused some of the large perception variation in these groups and the generally
higher resilience scores.
6.4.3 Policy Implications and Recommendations
Overall, our study reflects the current discourse pointing to the need for identifying
and implementing context-specific interventions when seeking to enhance local
resilience to climatic hazards. Such interventions, if designed and implemented
properly, can have positive ripple outcomes for national development priorities
and the progress to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs). For example,
Ghana’s medium-term development agenda (Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda II) has explicitly identified climate variability and climatic hazards
such as floods and droughts to be a “major threat to national development” (NDPC
2014:82). Similarly, enhancing resilience and building adaptive capacity to climatic
hazards has been encapsulated in SDG13 (Take urgent action to combat climate
change and its impacts), and especially Target 13.1 on “urgent action to combat
climate change and its impacts including strengthening resilience and adaptive
capacity to climate-related hazards and disasters”. To all intents and purposes,
building resilience to climate change (and its impacts) is a cross-cutting theme across
multiple SDGs (Yonehara et al. 2017), and especially SDG1 (no poverty), SDG6
(clean water and sanitation) and SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities),
among others (UN 2015).
Integrative, collaborative and participatory approaches to resilience planning
could thus have a positive effect in the ongoing efforts to meet such policy objectives. Below we discuss four possible recommendations for enhancing the resilience
of local communities to climatic hazards. Even though these recommendations are
mostly relevant to the specific context of this study (i.e. droughts and floods in semiarid Ghana), they can have some applicability to other SSA contexts where climate
change is a major driver of environmental and socioeconomic change (e.g. Chaps. 2
and 3 Vol. 2).
First, there is a need to introduce and improve the predictive power of early
warning systems. The outputs of such systems should be combined with bottom-up
information about the adaptation needs/priorities of local communities and the
factors affecting the resilience to climatic hazards at the district, community and
household level. This information should be combined for the development, monitoring and evaluation of intervention strategies, while combining the viewpoints of
different stakeholders (Parnewll 2011; Yonehara et al. 2017; Saito et al. 2018a, b).
To forge a broader understanding of such techniques and information it would be
important to build capacity among stakeholders and researchers. A key step would
be to incorporate resilience concepts into educational policies and curricula to equip
multiple stakeholders with the practical knowledge and necessary skillsets to conduct and appreciate the outputs of resilience assessments (Apronti et al. 2015).
6 Perceived Community Resilience to Floods and Droughts Induced by Climate Change. . . 213
higher resilience scores.
6.4.3 Policy Implications and Recommendations
Overall, our study reflects the current discourse pointing to the need for identifying
and implementing context-specific interventions when seeking to enhance local
resilience to climatic hazards. Such interventions, if designed and implemented
properly, can have positive ripple outcomes for national development priorities
and the progress to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs). For example,
Ghana’s medium-term development agenda (Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda II) has explicitly identified climate variability and climatic hazards
such as floods and droughts to be a “major threat to national development” (NDPC
2014:82). Similarly, enhancing resilience and building adaptive capacity to climatic
hazards has been encapsulated in SDG13 (Take urgent action to combat climate
change and its impacts), and especially Target 13.1 on “urgent action to combat
climate change and its impacts including strengthening resilience and adaptive
capacity to climate-related hazards and disasters”. To all intents and purposes,
building resilience to climate change (and its impacts) is a cross-cutting theme across
multiple SDGs (Yonehara et al. 2017), and especially SDG1 (no poverty), SDG6
(clean water and sanitation) and SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities),
among others (UN 2015).
Integrative, collaborative and participatory approaches to resilience planning
could thus have a positive effect in the ongoing efforts to meet such policy objectives. Below we discuss four possible recommendations for enhancing the resilience
of local communities to climatic hazards. Even though these recommendations are
mostly relevant to the specific context of this study (i.e. droughts and floods in semiarid Ghana), they can have some applicability to other SSA contexts where climate
change is a major driver of environmental and socioeconomic change (e.g. Chaps. 2
and 3 Vol. 2).
First, there is a need to introduce and improve the predictive power of early
warning systems. The outputs of such systems should be combined with bottom-up
information about the adaptation needs/priorities of local communities and the
factors affecting the resilience to climatic hazards at the district, community and
household level. This information should be combined for the development, monitoring and evaluation of intervention strategies, while combining the viewpoints of
different stakeholders (Parnewll 2011; Yonehara et al. 2017; Saito et al. 2018a, b).
To forge a broader understanding of such techniques and information it would be
important to build capacity among stakeholders and researchers. A key step would
be to incorporate resilience concepts into educational policies and curricula to equip
multiple stakeholders with the practical knowledge and necessary skillsets to conduct and appreciate the outputs of resilience assessments (Apronti et al. 2015).
6 Perceived Community Resilience to Floods and Droughts Induced by Climate Change. . . 213