The city of Kumasi, Ghana, has a population thought to be fast approaching one million. It was once envisaged as a 'Garden City of West Africa', with low-density suburbs surrounding a central hub. Rapid urbanisation, for the most part unchecked by strategic planning considerations, has rendered the present land-use pattern far more complex. The sustainable management of natural resources together with improvements in agricultural productivity and energy recycling are key issues. A research team from the UK Natural Resources Institute has been tackling them in collaboration with the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi and the University of Nottingham. The findings reveal a troubled situation that is increasingly unfavourable to poor people who inhabit the city limits.

As the city expands, villages on the margins become absorbed into the general urban sprawl, housing development removes large areas from agriculture, livelihoods are threatened and land disputes are frequent. The research team looked at these issues from different research angles, including socio-economics, agriculture, development planning and GIS. Methodologies have included village-level Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs) and a stratified random sample survey of 66 villages. Initial findings indicate that:

• land is the key natural resource in peri-urban areas
• traditional Chiefs are major driving forces behind changes in land use
• overall, the increase in land development has tended to transfer resources from poor to rich
• In agriculture, weak security of tenure discourages longer-term cropping systems such as tree crops.
• predominant food-crop bush-fallow systems have only been intensified to a limited extent by a few farmers, though some younger farmers have tried intensification in vegetable and cereal cropping
• in the peri-urban villages, more women than men are farmers. They are vulnerable to losing their farms to residential development and have limited capital for investment in new livelihoods
• many young people seek to move out of farming, which they see as an unattractive occupation, but they lack training or capital so other kinds of employment opportunity are limited
• co-ordination between institutions at village and district levels is weak
• village development planning is generally ineffective, with limited community participation
• environmental management issues are not being given enough attention
• planning is handicapped by information shortfalls.

Policy implications are as follows:

• Land issues are complex and sensitive. Well-researched information on effects of the current system is needed to put key stakeholders in the picture.
• Alternative livelihood options are needed for those groups likely to lose out most by new developments.
• Community involvement is vital but it cannot be assumed that the peri-urban village is one community.
• Security of land tenure will boost sustainable farming practices so needs to be developed and promoted.
• More use of indigenous resources for maintaining soil fertility should be researched and encouraged.
• Methodologies to promote and develop ownership of plans at village level should be tested and utilised.
• The project has established and maintained a Geographic Information System, known as KUMINFO. Its use will be encourage as an aid to planning and monitoring natural resource management around the city.

Source(s):
1. Kumasi Natural Resources Management Research Project Inception Report edited by NRI and the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi (1998).
2. Article in the DFID Research Advances series (in prep.)
3. Papers in Third World Planning Review, Land Management and Land Use Policy (in prep.)

Funded by: DFID, UK: NRR project R6799 (1997-2000)

id21 Research Highlight: 1998-June-15

Further Information:
Barry Blake, Martin Adam, Judith Pender, Paul Sarfo-Mensah or Hilary Warburton
Natural Resources Institute
University of Greenwich
Chatham Maritime
Kent ME4 4TB
UK

Tel: + 44 (0)1634 880088
Fax: + 44 (0)1634 880066
Contact the contributor: martin.adam@nri.org

Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, UK