Floods are common events that confront many cities in the developing world. Ghana, a developing country, is persistently challenged with flood events, especially in its major cities. In informal Accra, for instance, despite the severity of flood effects and its associated threats, poor informal residents continue to stay. As a result, these poor urban dwellers have developed local coping strategies made up of mitigation and reactive measures to manage and adapt to flood hazards through their preceding experiences. In this article, we have embraced the convergent parallel mixed method of case study design to echo and explore (1) the major effects of preceding floods on informal households, (2) the local informal coping strategies adopted by households to mitigate and respond to flooding and its effects in the future and (3) the determinants of the coping strategies of households that underpin their continual stay in spite of flood risks in Alajo, an urbanised suburb in Accra metropolis noted as one of the slum communities that easily flood in Ghana. Our analysis has used a mix of qualitative and quantitative data collected from both secondary and primary sources as well as a conceptualised model known as disaster resilience of place. The key findings (Alajo has low degree of adaptive resilience to major floods which might occur in the future because of the lack of social learning in the coping strategies developed through several years of lessons learnt from perennial floods) and proposals (local coordination in implementing the coping strategies to flooding, state support of the local strategies and adoption of rainwater harvesting) also make contributions to managing urban floods in informal settlements in the developing world.

With global urbanization on the increase and cities now hosting more than half of the planet's population, there are concerns regarding the protection of urban commons as part of sustainability efforts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Decentralized urban planning is a policy tool and practice that is used to organize urban infrastructure for sustainable development. Yet, how it can be used to sustain the urban commons remains fragmented in the literature. This study reviews and synthesizes urban planning and urban commons literature using the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and the non-cooperative game theory to identify how urban planning can protect and sustain the urban commons – green commons, land commons, and water commons – in Ghana. The study, based on the determination of different theoretical scenarios for the urban commons, identified that decentralized urban planning can help sustain the urban commons, but it is operationalized in an unfavorable political environment. For green commons, there are competing interests and poor coordination amongst planning institutions, and the absence of self-organizing bodies in managing the use of such resources. For land commons, increased land litigations are characterized by corruption and poor management of land cases in the formal land courts, and despite the existence of self-organizing institutions, these institutions have failed to act responsibly to protect land commons due to the increasing demands and values (profitability) of lands in urban areas. For water commons, urban planning has not been fully decentralized and there is also the absence of self-organizing bodies in urban water use and management. This is coupled with the waning of customary water protection provisions in urban centers. Based on the findings, the study generally proposes institutional strengthening as the bedrock for enhancing the sustainability of the urban commons through urban planning and should therefore be of policy focus moving forward.

The water industry in Ghana has recently experienced a massive proprietary change, from its public monotonic system to a public–private system mixed with localized private participation options. Although these changes have contributed to local and national revenue generation, the consumption bracket continually de-equalizes due to inaccessibility and unavailability patterns of water provision. This has made water a scarce commodity for some, whilst others are over-supplied and over-satisfied. In this research, the manifestation of private sector participation in Ghana's urban water sector in the midst of the public water system and its implications on water supply have been investigated using both secondary and primary data. The study reveals significant deficiencies in urban water needs and wider inequality outcomes amongst urbanites despite government's neo-liberal interventions in the water sector. The major proposals include the need for re-alignment of private sector engagements characterized by proper state's regulatory control mechanisms and encouragement of community/neighborhood joint water supply systems to complement state and private interventions in order to reverse the access and consumption deficiencies in the urban water sector.

Urban farmers remain vulnerable and trapped in poverty due to urbanisation and food crop and input price volatility. However, studies on the causes and effects as well as coping strategies to the phenomena remain inconclusive amidst diminishing urban farmlands, as the focus has been on smallholders in rural areas. This paper examines the attitudes of urban farmers on the strategies adopted to cope with input and crop price fluctuations in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality, Ghana. Data obtained from 380 respondents showed that four major factors influence the volatility of input prices: oil prices, exchange rates, cocoa producer prices and inflation. Farmers, however, had no coping strategies to these due to the limited control over them. Two key factors were noted to influence crop price fluctuation: natural and demand and supply factors. Farmers coped with food crop price fluctuations by: adding value to crops; farming in flood plains; diversifying income sources and shifting to cocoa cultivation. A shift to cocoa production and farming in flood plains was however revealed to have adverse environmental and ecological implications. The paper recommends the promotion of contractual farming to safeguard farmers against income falls; and the formulation of an environmental strategy which emphasises drought-resistant crop varieties with shorter gestation periods as well as promoting sustainable land and water management practices.