Dr Ebenezer F. Amankwaa

Recurrent and extreme weather events in Ghana have greatly affected the health and well-being of poor urban residents, and severely limited access to social and physical infrastructure, including education. Prolonged periods of excessive heat exacerbate structural vulnerabilities, chronicity and inequalities, disproportionately affecting the well-being of the urban poor. This extends to teaching and learning at primary schools.

More knowledge is required about how schoolchildren adapt to extreme heat and how the coping mechanisms they adopt in their day-to-day experience can be co-developed and integrated into action-oriented teaching and learning to enhance preparedness and resilience, and improve well-being. Add the COVID-19 pandemic with its risk of infection and morbidity, and the result is that freedom of movement among poor people and young people’s ability to access educational spaces and adhere to hygiene protocols are substantively disrupted, resulting in further adverse effects on their well-being.

Dr Ebenezer Forkuo Amankwaa’s research project is titled ‘Analysing dynamic adaptation strategies of the urban poor to extreme heat to improve well-being (ADAPT)’. ADAPT aims to develop new conceptual and empirical understandings of how young people and the urban poor experience and adapt to extreme heat at the nexus of demographic shifts, climate change and COVID-19. The actual knowledge the research will generate is relevant beyond Ghana to the Global South, and can broadly shape urban policy.

Extreme heat is an often hidden yet chronic threat, exacerbating vulnerabilities and inequalities. The extent and severity of overheating in formal and informal buildings coupled with the already precarious existence of the urban poor in Accra and Tamale is a recipe for disaster. The indoor temperatures in low-income housing can be 10°C higher than those recorded at nearby weather stations. Conditions are predicted to be more severe in the future, generating acute and chronic stress, particularly among the poor. The thermal comfort of schoolchildren and the COVID-19 pandemic will be examined as separate but equally pressing issues in the target communities, because while a causal relationship is not being claimed, they both make life difficult for young people and are likely to cause adverse outcomes.

Data will be collected through temperature and relative humidity monitoring, and a decolonial storytelling method that is on par with the country’s strong oral tradition will be employed. About 10 schools will be monitored and 100 thermal comfort surveys will be conducted. Four storytelling workshops, interviews with 30 poor people of different backgrounds, and focus groups will document dynamic experiences and strategies. A stakeholder workshop will bring together schoolchildren, teachers, vulnerable residents, policymakers and opinion leaders to stimulate discussion, which will be on climate change, vulnerability to pandemics, and adaptation techniques for youth and vulnerable urban residents.

School events will be arranged with selected primary and high schools to enable the techniques and strategies developed for adapting to extreme heat to be democratised with younger people in mind.

Dr Ebenezer Forkuo Amankwaa is an urban geographer and a lecturer in the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana. He holds a PhD in Geography (Urban Studies), an MPhil in Environmental Science and a BA in Geography and Resource Development from the University of Ghana. He is an affiliate of the African Academy of Sciences, has worked as a research fellow at the United Nations University’s Institute for Natural Resources in Africa, was a fellow of the Bosch Pan-African College on Sustainable Cities and is a member of the African Urban Planning Research Network. His research interests span the fields of social, economic and development geography with a focus on water, sanitation and energy infrastructure; informality, mobility and livelihood; environmental management; public health; climate change adaptation; and urban governance.