Ghana Summit
Successful summit held in Ghana to discuss Climate Change and Health
CIRU’s Senior Research Fellow Dr Michael Head and Jess Boxall, Research Fellow, and Data Analyst, have recently returned from Ghana after co-hosting an event along with Ghana Ministry of Health and PACKS Africa. The summit was held in Accra, Ghana, on Tuesday 12th March 2024 and was organised to discuss next steps following research that was recently undertaken around the subject of climate and health. The research involved hundreds of people in the rural Mion district in Northern Ghana being surveyed, with every person reporting some level of food insecurity (a lack of access to, or availability of, food). This is often caused by loss of crops or livestock, soil infertility, unpredictable seasonal changes, and pest or disease outbreaks. The researchers defined food insecurity for over a quarter of respondents as ‘severe’. Most people had also, on at least one occasion in the last year, been unable to reach their local health facility due to extreme weather conditions.
The research group has produced recommendations to policymakers, including that food aid programmes provide varied food (not just cereal products, as are currently provided) and storage solutions to protect food aid from flooding; improving the transport infrastructure; government intervention to diversify crops; ensuring ongoing health system revisions in Ghana consider access to health facilities; and education on climate change and climate smart agriculture practices.
Jess shares: “The results of our research are concerning, with entire communities reporting fears for their future food security. Our research was conducted in rural northern Ghana, but it’s extremely likely the findings are applicable to other Ghanaian communities – and across the African continent. Urgent short-term and long-term interventions are needed to give these communities a fighting chance.”
Keynote speakers of the Summit included Dr Wisdom Atiwoto, from the Ghana Ministry of Health, and the summit will be chaired by Professor Lydia Aziato, Vice Chancellor of Ghana’s University for Health and Allied Sciences.
We caught up with Michael who shared this feedback regarding the event:
“The Summit was a great success, bringing together so many people from so many different organisations and disciplines. One of the key discussion points was how we all work across such siloed areas. The word ‘synergy’ was used, and we feel it’s vital to maintain the conversation across different sectors. We really hope our Summit can be a launchpad for a more harmonized way of working going forward, with Ghanaian and West Africa voices leading the conversation.”
Kirchuffs Atengble, Visiting Fellow, University of Southampton, and Head of Research and Outreach, PACKS Africa shared with us the following:
“This summit presented a timely opportunity to explore deeper implications of climate change on many other sectors of society, including health, agriculture, energy, culture, and local economies. With the policy leadership of colleagues from the Ministry of Health, we anticipate maximum uptake of insights shared from the discussions. But more importantly we anticipate wider direction from the central government, to strengthen collaborations between climate change and these different sectors. Doing such will require prioritizing investments in research production and knowledge generation, and day 2 of the Summit ignited such efforts, through the drafting of a potential research and policy agenda. Active participation of different stakeholders in this agenda indicates desire to support these efforts, and policy leadership would be highly anticipated.”
Original source : https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2024/03/africa-summit-to-call-for-urgent-action.page
Photography credit to FJ Studios
