With climate change impacts increasingly affecting people’s livelihoods and dampening economic growth perspectives, effective adaptation is essential to ensure that already achieved development gains are not endangered. However, often only limited information is available on climate change impacts, especially in the long-term, as well as on the costs and benefits of concrete adaptation options. As part of the project “Climate risk analyses for identifying and weighing adaptation strategies in sub-Saharan Africa (AGRICA)”, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), undertook in cooperation with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) an in-depth climate risk analysis for identifying and weighing adaptation strategies in Ghana’s agricultural sector. The study focuses on evolving trends for temperature and precipitation, future water availability and the country’s suitability to grow crops. The study’s projections go up to 2090, offering opportunities not only to look into short-term trends (2030), but also to take into account -with great precision- medium (2050) and long-term climate change impacts. In addition, the study undertakes a cost-benefit analysis of selected adaptation options on which basis “business cases” for adaptation can be identified.
