Finding the right Path: Climate change and migration in Northern Ghana

Abstract

Climate change is considered to have aggravating effects on the security and quality of livelihoods of people around the world. Particularly rural populations of the so-called developing world or Global South are subject to increasing insecurity in their livelihoods (IPCC, 2001, 2007, 2013). Certainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the largest proportion of the rural population still maintain a land-based livelihood through dryland rain-fed crop farming and/or livestock holding and are therein highly dependent on the weather (IPCC, 2007, 2013; Morton, 2007; Foresight, 2011). As their livelihoods provide little chance of generating vast surpluses, they also have limited capacity to cope with extreme events and, more notably still, try to adapt to permanent changes in climate. Yet, in spite of these factors, the rural populations of Sub-Saharan Africa prove themselves to still be dynamic and innovative, having previously been able to generally cope and adapt to changes in their environment through various strategies.