Wa (U/W)-Ghana, Nov. 05, GNA – Thirty-two development officers in the Upper West Region have been trained on how to adopt the social transformation approach in their activities; from planning to impact assessment, to ensure holistic development.
The Social Transformation Approach involves providing the opportunity for citizens to determine their own and society’s needs and to influence decisions that affect these to ensure their total well-being.
Organized by the Resilience Against Climate Change-Social Transformation Research and Policy Advocacy (REACH-STR), the knowledge sharing and learning event was to improve stakeholders’ ability to capture, analyze, and include social transformation analyses in their planning, implementation, and monitoring processes.
It was on the theme: “Improving District-level Development Work with the Social Transformation Approach”.
Mr William Quarmine, a Regional Researcher at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), said development planning, intervention, project implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment could not be effective if social transformation was ignored.
Explaining the REACH-STR Social Transformation Approach to the participants, Mr Quarmine stated that it involved a step-by-step process of thinking through and initiating social-transformation backed development activities.
“The process includes scoping the context, social transformation analyses, co-development of interventions, monitoring and engagement with policy makers,” he said.
The Upper West Region is the most vulnerable region to climate change in Ghana due to its poor soil fertility, high poverty rate, coupled with rapid positive or negative socio-economic, technological, cultural, and demographic transformations or changes.
These seem to be influencing the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of different social groups including women, men, youth, and resource-poor farmers to climate change.
The outcomes of social transformation also intersect with existing environmental issues such as drought, to create complex climate adaptation and rural development challenges for decision makers at the district and national governance levels.
The REACH-STR project, therefore, seeks to contribute to knowledge on the transformation of individuals and societies for more inclusive planning and implementation of development interventions, especially in the changing climate context of the region.
The project, funded by the European Union, is being implemented by the IWMI, in partnership with the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (CSIR-STEPRI), and the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies.
