Conflict In Ghana Research Articles

Politics, Chieftaincy and Violent Extremism: Case of Chereponi-Wenchiki in Ghana-Togo Border

This study examined three issues, namely politics, violent extremism, and chieftaincy issues, in the Ghana-Togo border communities to determine which variable(s) influenced the other. This paper examines the relationship between violent extremism, politics, and chieftaincy conflicts in Ghana's North East region. It attempts to see if there is any linkage or connection between or among the three variables in the context of conflict and security along the two West African countries' borders (Ghana and Togo). Edward Azar's (1990) Protracted Conflict Theory (PCT), later emphasized by Bat-Tal (2000), guided the study. This study posits that politics and chieftaincy conflicts are the primary causes of violent extremism. In this regard, the study seeks the opinions, views, and experiences of the people in the Chereponi district, especially the communities along the Ghana-Togo borders. The study adopted an exploratory research design with a blend of experts' and non-experts' perspectives in the North East Region of Ghana and a few communities in Togo. The experts are spread across five regions of Northern Ghana, whereas the non-experts are concentrated in the Chereponi district. Twenty (20) respondents were interviewed face-to-face. The study found that the two major political parties (NPP and NDC) in Ghana were more involved in promoting the interests of some chiefs for political expediency. It found no link between politics and chieftaincy, leading to violent extremism. The study concludes that there is a clear link between politics and the chieftaincy institution in Ghana, but it also establishes that the Ghana-Togo border is free of extremist activities. It recommends a strong collaboration between Ghana and Togo in the fight against insecurity and possible acts of violent extremism along their borders.

Voices of disputants: Perspectives from Alavanyo on the Nkonya–Alavanyo conflict in Ghana.

Voices of disputants: Perspectives from Alavanyo on the Nkonya–Alavanyo conflict in Ghana.

We shall live: the experiences and responses of women to marginality in the ongoing Alavanyo - Nkonya land conflict in Ghana

This paper focuses on how women deal with challenges of marginality in the Alavanyo and Nkonya land conflict in Ghana. Using ethnographic data, the paper examines the collective and specific experiences of women and how they negotiate and navigate the challenges of marginality. The study observes that while marginality has become an enduring quality defining how women navigate everyday life, it also remains a contingent historical construction that could be contested so that women’s access to power, land, livelihoods and property may be negotiated in a way that may lead to the achievement of their social mobility aspirations and futures.

Land use practices and farmer–herder conflict in Agogo: dynamics of traditional authority and resistance

The existing literature has extensively explored the causes of farmer–herder conflicts in Ghana. However, there has been limited investigation into the relationship between royal hegemony over customary lands and the persistent nature of farmer–herder conflicts in the country. This study contributes to the understanding of agrarian conflicts in Ghana by examining the interconnectedness of cultural and social practices of land access with the intractability of farmer–herder conflicts in Agogo. The study utilised a qualitative research approach, involving 33 participants recruited through maximum variation purposive sampling. Data was gathered through interviews and focus group discussions. Inductive thematic analysis revealed that social practices of land access hold greater influence than legal provisions, granting significant power over lands to traditional authorities in Agogo. We argue that the on-going intransigence of traditional rulers regarding land access, coupled with the persistent resistance from smallholder farmers through attempts to evict Fulani herders, as well as the resistance demonstrated by the Fulani herders themselves, are key factors contributing to the intractable nature of farmer–herder conflicts in Agogo. This study emphasises the need for a deeper understanding of the cultural and social dimensions underlying land access practices and their impact on farmer–herder conflicts.

Sustainable peace building education: strategies used by Ghana’s National Peace Council

ABSTRACT African countries experience a lot of recurring conflicts because the underlying causes of most conflicts on the continent have either been unresolved or tackled at the surface level. This situation leads to the loss of lives and property. Ghana’s National Peace Council (NPC) is one of the existing peace infrastructures whose mandate is to educate the public on peace and conflict management. However, there is a paucity of literature on how this peace council educates the Ghanaian population on peacebuilding. The study, therefore, sought to uncover strategies employed by Ghana’s NPC in educating the public on peacebuilding. Data was gathered through interviews and focused group discussions with participants who work with the NPC. The study also relied on secondary data, which consisted of recordings of peace education programmes through mass media such as TV and radio. The findings revealed that two main strategies are employed by the NPC of Ghana, namely, the use of media platforms (TV and radio) and socio-entertaining strategies. In addition to traditional media, this study argues that the NPC should utilise modern media, such as social media and the Internet, for peace education. If utilised, these two media forms would reach a much larger audience and could be used to prevent conflict in Ghana.

Coping strategies for victims of farmer–herder conflicts in Ghana.

Coping strategies for victims of farmer–herder conflicts in Ghana.

Protracted Conflicts in Africa: Evidence of the Ramifications of Bawku Conflict in Ghana on Access to Health Facilities and Health Service Utilisation

The study mainly analyzes some protracted conflicts in Africa, particularly in Northern Ghana in Bawku in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The theoretical perspective was on protracted social conflict theory with insights from Edward Azar and its implications or ramifications on the internal and external relations of countries. The method used was largely a descriptive survey design, with the main instrument of data collection being a questionnaire, which was administered in the Bawku area in June 2023. A simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The sample size was 399, and the data was analyzed with basic statistics and presented in tables and charts. The study found that the Bawku conflict significantly affected or impacted both the people's access to healthcare facilities (56.3%) and their access to healthcare service utilization (51.2%). Also, the study found that the most detrimental effects of the conflict were in terms of death (78.7%), injuries (74.5%), and obstructions to people's daily activities or operations (66%). In terms of the most effective or most common conflict resolution mechanisms that have been used in the conflict, they include the use of police and the military, followed by traditional councils and houses of chiefs. The study recommends that there must be concerted efforts by the central government and all stakeholders to address the conflict and find a long-lasting solution to the ethnic conflicts that have engulfed the Bawku traditional area. Also, political parties should limit their interference (meddling or snooping) and allow the traditional leaders in the Upper East Region, together with the National House of Chiefs’ free hand, to mediate and resolve the protracted Bawku conflict in Ghana.

The Political Ecology of Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: A Case Study of the Kwahu Afram Plains South District

Farmer-herder conflict is an age-old phenomenon, which is widely spread in the West African sub-region. Current studies on the Ghanaian farmer-herder conflict have emphasised the land-related conflicts between indigenous farmers and nomadic herders. It has focused especially on environmental scarcity and climate change approaches. However, this study adopts the political ecology framework to highlight land conflicts between migrant farmers and nomadic herders, two migrant groups that are considered "strangers" to the Kwahu Afram Plains District. The study contributes to the broader debates on farmer-herder conflict. It provides contrary evidence with regard to the popular notion in literature and theory about the prevalence of land insecurity among nomadic herders. The study argues that migrant farmers in the study area experience more land insecurity compared to the nomadic herders. This is because of their history of immigration, their relationship with the Kwahu landowners, which is driving the escalating cost of accessing land, and disputes between landowning groups.

Emerging Local Voices and New Possibilities toward Attaining Sustainable Peace in Bawku, north-eastern Ghana

Globally, conflicts continue to change dynamics and increase in complexity, weakening the potential of various peacebuilding interventions, especially in the Global South. The Bawku crisis is a notable protracted conflict in Ghana and West Africa, which attracts enormous scholarly debates, especially on how to attain sustained peace in the area. However, there remains some important dynamics that are not significantly explored in the discussions on achieving sustained peace in Bawku. Drawing on in-depth field interviews, we present a new perspective on chieftaincy and landownership (and use), shifting from absolute control to a shared system, aimed at potentially resolving conflicts. The proposed shared political and landownership system also reveals important weaknesses relating to existing court verdicts and scholarly advocacy for a parallel system or the resettlement of the Mamprusi outside of the area. However, this empirical contribution offers a new possibility to resolve the Bawku crisis and similar challenges in Ghana and Africa.

Lessons learned from community engagement and participation in fostering coexistence and minimizing human-wildlife conflict in Ghana

Human-wildlife-conflicts (HWCs) threaten wildlife conservation and livelihoods, particularly around biodiversity hotspots, such as Ghana's Bia Biosphere Reserve (BBR). Because wildlife raids farms or preys on livestock, such conflicts cause economic losses to farmers, psychological distress to communities, and social tensions between stakeholders, leading to retaliation—killing or injuring wildlife. Nonetheless, traditional approaches to HWC management, such as physical barriers, buffer zones, scare tactics, and non-lethal wildlife deterrents, are ineffective in addressing the problem. The study investigates HWCs in five communities through case studies involving focus groups, interviews, and on-site observations to understand the effects of wildlife-related incidents on these villages, how stakeholders accept and tolerate wildlife issues, and assess the effectiveness of the community engagement and participation (CEP) approach as a potential solution. The findings show that although CEP has the potential to mitigate HWCs and promote coexistence, the lack of involvement of communities substantially hinders the success of conservation efforts and addressing HWCs, which have substantial ecological, economic, social, and psychological impacts on communities near the BBR. Also, farmers' level of acceptance is substantially affected by the perceived economic benefits derived from the reserve. A crucial lesson learned is that involving communities in wildlife management can be more challenging and demands stakeholder cooperation and trust-building. The study recommends that the Ghana government consider (a) fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility among communities by actively and meaningfully involving them in designing and implementing wildlife management and (b) implementing policies that prioritize creating alternative livelihood opportunities for communities living in the BBR area.

Industrial and small-scale fisheries relations in Ghana: A political ecology perspective on blue economy exclusion

The fisheries sector in Ghana is a significant source of livelihood for many communities along the coast. However, the sector faces several challenges, including the power dynamics between the industrial bottom trawl industry and small-scale fishers. The concept of resource scarcity has frequently been used to characterise conflicts between industrial vessels and small-scale canoes in Ghana. This paper seeks to build on this dominant narrative that resource scarcity is the key driver of conflicts, arguing that exclusion, and resistance to exclusion can also explain contemporary conflicts in marine fisheries, and that indeed apparent resource scarcity can be caused by exclusion. A political ecology lens reveals that fisheries conflict in Ghana is entwined with established and emerging socio-political domains of exclusion, namely, regulation, legitimisation, force, and the market. We explain how contradictory regulations and ambiguous boundary delimitations, combined with a long period of weak enforcement, have helped industrial trawlers exploit fisheries in ways that exclude small-scale fishers. Additionally, with foreign-aid diplomacy legitimising the expansion of foreign-owned industrial trawlers, the infiltration of illegal catch into the small-scale value chain harms local businesses. We conclude that conflict serves as both a tool and a symptom of exclusion through its connection to regulatory, jurisdictional, and political contexts, as well as market dynamics.

Two Maps, Two Tales and Two Truths: A Purposeful Transformational Approach to the Nkonya–Alavanyo Conflict in Ghana

In this article, we suggest rethinking the conflict resolution agenda among seemingly latent intractable communal conflicts by moving toward a constructive transformation of these conflicts. We connect Coser's theorization on social conflict and Lederach's conflict transformational ideas to, first, offer an alternative way of reconceptualizing conflict in ways that focus on harnessing the inherent potentialities of conflicts while changing the negative relational patterns among disputants; second, we propose emancipation from the local turn in peacebuilding to a local-local turn that will create a sense of local ownership, legitimize the process and increase the likelihood of acceptable and durable outcomes. To substantialize our argument, we present phenomenologically generated evidence from the Nkonya–Alavanyo conflict, which persists for over a century despite several attempts at its resolution. The conflict revolves around two truths derived from two maps and two tales and is overshadowed by mutual accusations and historically conditioned distrust of mediators.

Cattle Ranching and Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: Views of Nomadic Herders

Cattle Ranching and Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: Views of Nomadic Herders

Citizenship, Indigeneity and the Management of Herders and Farmers Conflicts in Ghana and Nigeria

In recent times, Nigeria and Ghana have experienced bloody conflicts between herders and farmers. Studies identify indigeneity and citizenship struggles as causal factors of the conflicts. Ghana and Nigeria have implemented policies and legislations to manage herders and farmers conflicts. Because scholarly engagement with the policies and legislations are relatively scant, the ways in which indigeneity and citizenship struggles are subtly ingrained in the provisions of the legislations and policies are yet to be unraveled. This study explores indigeneity and citizenship struggles in Ghana and Nigeria and how they foreground state policies and legislations for managing the conflicts.

Explaining region creation conflicts in Ghana

ABSTRACTFor the first time in its history, Ghana held a referendum in 2018 to divide some of its regions to create new ones. Though the regions are purely administrative, the division faced resistance in some areas and not in others. This study combines qualitative comparative analysis with process tracing to show that the resistance occurred within regions with relatively high support for the opposition party, but only in the combined presence of (traditional) elites competing from either side of the region and controversies regarding claims to (traditional) political authority. Further, it finds a bottom-up mechanism of the resistance, evolving as the threatened interests of stakeholders grew from the community to the regional, national and diaspora levels. As in other African cases, this suggests that the sources of conflicts in Africa are not so much about ethnic differences but more about elites’ unequal access to political and economic resources.

Collaboration between traditional and central authorities in chieftaincy succession conflicts management in Ghana: Evidence from Bole traditional area

Chieftaincy succession conflicts are a near-ubiquitous phenomenon in Ghanaian Chiefdoms. While many studies have investigated the causes and implications of such conflicts, the extent to which traditional and central authorities collaborate in the management of chieftaincy succession conflicts in Ghana is largely understudied. This is the gap in the literature that this study attempted to fill. The study was situated within the frameworks of the Collaborative Leadership Theory. The Exploratory Sequential variant of the mixed method approach was adopted for the study where 16 key informants were recruited using expert purposive sampling technique and 99 others recruited for a survey using stratified and simple random sampling techniques. The unit of analysis was the Bole chieftaincy succession conflict management team. Data were solicited around the level of representation of traditional and central authorities on the team, the roles assigned to each member, the levels of commitment of each member, and the significance of the roles played by each member at the various stages of conflict management. The analysis of the data revealed that there were some levels of collaboration at the preparatory stage of the mediation process but this was less so at the main stages of the mediation process. The study therefore recommended that the state, through the National Security Council, may liaise with the National House of Chiefs to fashion out better ways of collaborating in conflict management, from the initial stages to the final stages, so as to completely resolve chieftaincy conflicts that are often disruptive and destructive.

The Gender Dimensions of Resource Conflicts in Ghana: Deconstructing the Male-Centric and Binary Outlook of Communal Conflicts

The literature on gender and conflicts in Africa is dominated by essentialised and narrow male-centric constructions of conflict and stereotypes of female victimhood which obscure alternative female-centric ideation and experiences on conflict and conflict resolution. Using interdisciplinary methodologies, and drawing in insights from anthropology and history, this article explores the nature of women’s constructions of and participation in community conflicts and what drives their participation. We do this by investigating the gendered nature of community conflicts and conflict resolution in eight communities that are experiencing conflict over chieftaincy, land use and resources. We show that issues that are of concern for women – for example disputes over water use or witchcraft accusations – are largely relegated to the background. Moreover, women are excluded from most aspects of conflict and conflict resolution, at both the local and state level. We argue for a re-examination of the normative gendered constructions of conflict in Ghana to include female-centric ideas of conflict and conflict resolution.

Climate change, migration and farmer–herder conflict in Ghana

AbstractClimate change, migration, and conflict have been featured prominently in academic and policy literature. While Africa remains the major reference point, studies on key conflict hotspots fail to adequately examine empirical demonstrations of how climate change forces migration, and consequently major conflicts. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews, focus group discussions, and employing the scarcity theory in a study of Agogo (Ghana), we illustrate how regional and local climate/environmental variability and scarcity trigger and sustain migration and farmer–herder conflicts. The findings offer insights into how other non‐climatic and ecological conditions reinforce the so‐called climate‐induced conflicts, exposing the limitations of the scarcity‐theory. Importantly, this study has provided an illustrative argument centered around the contextual dynamics of the nexus between climate change and farmer–herder conflict in Agogo to contribute to national, regional, and continental discussion on this critical topic.

Violent farmer–herder conflicts in Ghana: constellation of actors, citizenship contestations, land access and politics

ABSTRACT This paper presents evidence from two cases in Ghana (Agogo and Gushiegu) to examine why farmer–herder conflicts escalate into violence. It argues that aside from resource competition, and crop damage, there are multi-faceted and dynamic processes and factors involved. The cases show that such violent conflicts can be explained by a constellation of actors, politics, land access and citizenship contestations. Many actors are important in this escalation. Local citizenship discourses and framing of conflicts are intricately linked to struggles over access to land and resources through which actors mobilize for violence. Both farmers and herders see cattle owners, chiefs, politicians, local groups and government officials as responsible for mobilizing and inciting violence and clandestinely using politics and citizenship in access to resources. At the same time, farmer–herder conflicts generate internal struggles between those who have interests in cattle (herders/businessmen and chiefs/elders) and those who have no such interests (young first-comer “cattleless” farmers).

A Human Security Angle of Conflicts: The Case of Farmer–Herder Conflict in Ghana

AbstractIn Ghana, the economic costs of violent conflicts (loss of jobs and revenue, drop in gross domestic product, and disruption of production chain) have been well documented. However, there is little scholarly work on such conflicts’ human security costs, a critical element in contemporary security management arrangements. This study examines the costs of violent conflicts from a human security perspective using the farmer–herder conflict in the Agogo community in the Ashanti region of Ghana as a case study. A total of 400 participants were randomly and purposely selected. A χ2 test was employed to determine the association of rape, armed robbery, arson and murder with the farmer–herder conflict. The study found that at a 5% margin of error, the p value for armed robbery was 0.01, rape was 0.01, arson was 0.03 and murder was 0.00, indicating a close association between these variables and the conflict.