Martin Oteng-Ababio

This research focuses on labour turnover and employment dynamics within Ghana's e‐waste industry, specifically at Agbogbloshie, Accra's primary e‐waste recycling site. The study investigates the factors influencing people's involvement in different roles within the e‐waste value chain through qualitative research methods. This involves in‐depth interviews and content analysis to comprehend motivations, income structures, age distributions and transitional patterns. The study reveals that health concerns and the desire for financial stability significantly impact individuals' decisions to enter and advance within the industry. The findings also suggest a shift from entry‐level positions to more lucrative roles facilitated by financial resources. However, challenges such as income variability, lack of safety measures, and limited resource access persist, particularly for those in lower‐level roles. The study recommends the implementation of integration, regulation and support mechanisms to promote sustainable livelihoods and productive employment in the sector, aligning with Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8). Policymakers are encouraged to establish supportive regulatory frameworks, enhance resource accessibility, promote skill development, foster public–private partnerships, advocate for circular economy principles, and invest in capacity‐building and awareness initiatives to address the complex challenges of the e‐waste industry. Overall, this study offers valuable insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and researchers seeking to promote sustainable development and inclusive growth within the e‐waste industry.

This study examines the environmental impacts of informal e-waste recycling processes in Agbogbloshie, Ghana, which is one of the most notorious e-waste recycling sites in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite being unsafe and unorganized, the informal sector is still actively involved in dismantling, extracting, and disposing of e-waste in unauthorized locations on a considerably large scale. However, the academic research on the environmental consequences of informal recycling practices is limited. Soil and groundwater samples for five important and representative informal e-waste recycling processes and one related oil process were collected and analyzed to determine heavy metal-, PBDEs, PCBs, CBs, and PAHs concentrations. Contamination indices were used to assess and compare the effects of informal recycling processes, thereby providing a geochemical evaluation of soil conditions. As a result, the manual dismantling of CRT and ICT devices is the major source of heavy metal pollution. Furthermore, the burning of e-waste plastic for waste reduction purposes and the oil collection process substantially contribute to the input of organic pollutants. Regulatory measures for CRT and ICT recycling would result in an 85% reduction of heavy metals and the enforcement of a compulsory collection system for plastic and oil would eliminate 86% of the organic pollutants.

Climate change seriously threatens human systems, properties and livelihoods. Global projections suggest a continuous increase in the frequency and severity of weather events, with severe outcomes. Although the trends and impacts are highly variable depending on location, most studies tend to concentrate on either the urban or rural areas, with little focus on peri-urban areas. Yet, in Sub-Saharan Africa, peri-urban areas display unique characteristics: inadequate infrastructure, unplanned development, weak governance, and environmental degradation, all of which exacerbate flood impact and thus need academic attention. This study contributes to filling this gap by assessing the flood vulnerability of roads in peri-urban Accra and its implications for mobility. Based on the fieldwork, the study delineated and analysed potential zones within the research locations. The researchers calculated roads’ absolute and relative lengths, using a spatial overlay (intersection) of potentially flooded roads with the total road network within the grid cells of 500 m by 500 m. These measures were adopted and used as exposure measures. The findings revealed that over 80% of roads with lengths between 100 m and 500 m were exposed to floods. Some areas had higher exposure indices, with absolute road lengths ranging from 1.5 km to 3.2 km and relative road lengths between 0.8 and 1.0. There were significant variations in road exposure between and within neighbourhoods. Depending on the depth and duration of the floodwater, residents may be unable to access their homes or carry out their daily activities. In conclusion, this study highlights the differential vulnerability of peri-urban areas to road flooding and recommends targeted provision of flood-resilient infrastructure to promote sustainable development.

Urban resilience experts have highlighted that frequent extreme weather events are a result of rapid, unplanned development and climate change. To ensure coherent urban planning, effective land governance has been a priority since the introduction of the national urban policy in 2012. However, despite implementing this policy for over a decade, poor land governance continues to negatively impact city development, yet this subject has received limited academic attention. Our study focuses on Santa Maria, a community historically neglected by planning officials and currently facing unregulated urbanization and increasing flood risks. We used qualitative research methods, including key informant interviews and document reviews, to unpack land ownership and management complexities. These complexities have led to “planning by the commons,” the creation of green space deserts, and challenges related to residents' mobility and livelihood. Our study affirms that auto-constructed communities like Santa Maria reflect a form of tenacious urbanism that should be acknowledged and respected. Incorporating its logic into proposals for consolidation, informed by the opinions and desires of the residents themselves, can help integrate “planning by the commons” into the urban planning process of Accra. Rather than being viewed as a problem to be cured, this approach should be incorporated into the planning process, incorporating locally specific social functions and traditional structures to ensure equitable and just urban societies. The public sector must recognize that building on local capacity, skills, and expertise is essential in the quest for a resilient city. The experience from Santa Maria provides a great opportunity to nurture local development, fulfill the growing demand for solutions and services without biases, and provide an excellent opportunity for inclusive growth.

Urban flood risk is significantly shaped by ground conditions and the built environment, which are constantly modified and transformed by human actions. This paper examines the intertwinement of flood risk and unregulated urban expansion processes in three selected sites in Accra’s expanding periphery. All three sites have been included in Accra’s urban extent since the 1990s, but differ with regard to the timing of development and socio-economic characteristics of residents. The research illuminates how flood risk is produced and “built-in” to the urban fabric through widespread practices associated with unregulated urban expansion processes, especially the persistent encroachment on water retention areas, wetlands and riparian zones and the highly fragmented provision of transport infrastructure in emerging residential areas in the periphery. Such harmful development practices are neither confined to homebuilders from poorer segments of the urban population nor spatially concentrated in low-income areas. The research highlights how the actions and inactions of a wide range of social groups and actors engaged in urban land administration and development contribute to flood risk in various ways, making flooding an increasingly alarming issue of citywide concern. Different stakeholders highlight fragmented urban governance as an underlying root cause for the obstruction of sustainable land and water management. Overall, the study calls for a more robust recognition of spatial planning and transport infrastructure provision in flood risk mitigation and highlights the urgent need for planning and governance practices that challenge the existing fragmentation of urban governance systems.

Urban managers in sub-Saharan Africa have recently come under intense pressure to prepare for and adapt to the footprints of rapid peri-urbanization and increased climate-related risks. Addressing spatial planning integral with the urban expansion is not only because climate variability is becoming more prominent. Further, within peri-urban zones, people most often live and work in physical areas of hazard that are commensurate with their economic stability. This makes the need for adaptation amidst inadequate resources imperative. These concerns find expression at the local level, where stakeholders’ priorities focus on the gap between adaptation needs and existing adaptation efforts. Drawing insights from our study in Accra, which combines the perspectives and experiences of practitioners, academics, and citizens, we show how decisions constructed around flood vulnerabilities, people’s actions, and planning processes are seldom neutral. We infer how prioritizing efforts to adapt to floods may privilege some residents and compromise others’ support, agency, and capacities to recover. We call for increased attention to how city authorities can creatively move urban planning toward more informed, inclusive, and supportive recovery visions in response to the consolidation of urban peripheries and increased climate exacerbated flooding in the quest for social justice for all.

This paper analyzes the mobility disruptions experienced by urban residents in relation to heavy precipitation and flooding of roads. The empirical focus is Accra, Ghana, a rapidly growing African city with discernible challenges in its transport system and a longstanding history of recurrent flood hazards, which are likely to be exacerbated by climate change in the future. In a context where there is very little mobility data available from official sources, the paper utilizes data from a large mobility survey (n = 1053) conducted through in-person interviews in July–August 2021 in 10 selected neighborhoods in Accra’s sprawling periphery. The survey targeted economically active adults, who are travelling regularly in relation to their income-generating activities. The survey recorded respondents’ experiences with a wide range of mobility disruptions caused by heavy precipitation and water on the roads. The analysis of survey data is supplemented with insights from qualitative interviews with a range of local key informants (n = 75). The research illuminates the diversity of mobility disruptions experienced by Accra’s residents during and after heavy precipitation events and the adverse implications for livelihoods and access to markets and services. The results highlight that mobility disruptions related to heavy precipitation are an extremely commonplace experience for residents in Accra’s periphery, across a diverse collection of neighborhoods and across travel patterns and traveler characteristics. While existing research tends to privilege the most dramatic and disastrous flood events and the associated destruction of property, this research, however, draws attention to the somewhat under-researched topic of mobility disruptions to everyday activities and their implications for livelihoods and access to markets and services.