Evidence that belongs to the community
Residents can see their own priorities written down, which makes it far harder for a programme to drift away from them.
Climate Adaptation
Participatory Community Needs Assessment
Programmes fail quietly when they answer a question the community never asked. So we start by asking.
Climate AdaptationCompleted Northern Region With Partners
The Challenge
The challenge
Rural communities in Northern Ghana are living with shorter, less predictable rains, hotter days and thinning tree cover. What that means in practice differs from one village to the next: a dry borehole here, a lost dry-season garden there, a river crossing that now cuts a school off for weeks.
Programmes designed from a district office, or from a template, tend to miss those differences. They also tend to hear from whoever speaks first and loudest at a gathering, which is rarely the women who carry the water or the young people with no land of their own.
Our Response
What we did
We put the mapping in the hands of the community, on the ground, in the open, where everyone present could see what was being recorded and correct it.
- Community mapping of water points, farmland, parkland and the risks residents actually name
- Separate conversations with women and young people, so priorities are not spoken over
- Household-level discussion of livelihoods, food security and coping strategies
- Seasonal calendars that show when in the year hardship actually bites
- Ranking of priorities by residents themselves, rather than by visiting staff
The Difference
What changed
The assessment is not a document that sits on a shelf. It is the thing every later decision in that community is checked against.
Programmes designed around real gaps
What DF delivers in a village is shaped by what that village ranked highest, not by what was easiest to fund.
Voices that usually go unheard
Running women's and youth sessions separately changed what came out of the process in almost every community.
A baseline to measure against
Later work has something honest to be compared with.
Why It Matters
Why it matters
Climate adaptation is specific or it is nothing. A response built on what a community actually named is the one they will still be running once the funding ends.
Get Involved
How partners can help
Assessment is the least glamorous part of a programme and the part most often cut. It is also what decides whether the rest works.
- Fund participatory assessment as a costed stage of your programme, not an afterthought
- Commission community mapping ahead of a wider intervention
- Support the training of community facilitators who can run the process themselves
- Use our assessment data to design work in districts where we already have relationships
Part of our Climate Mitigation & Adaptation programme.
More Of Our Work
Other projects
Women in the Shea Value Chain
Strengthening women's groups to collect, process and sell quality shea butter at fair prices.
Northern Region
Cassava & Gari Processing for Livelihoods
Equipping rural women and youth with agro-processing skills to add value and earn year-round income.
Savannah Region
Research Validation & Policy Dialogue
Taking findings back to communities for validation, then into district dialogue.
Tamale
Fund a project that reaches the last mile.
Talk to us about co-designing your next programme in Northern Ghana.