Becoming resilient? incremental learning and flood responses in informal settlements in Accra, Ghana.

Abstract

For decades, many informal communities in Accra, Ghana have suffered from annual flood hazards. Residents of these communities appear to have successfully resisted evictions by city authorities; survived flood hazards and poor environmental health conditions. They continue to expand with increasing housing and population densities in the face of these annual floods. Are they becoming resilient? Have residents built adaptive capacities through learning experiences from previous flood occurrences and evictions attempts? What has produced and continued to shape their responses to flooding? What can be learned from this supposed grassroots resilience to inform flood management in urban Africa? Using case studies of three informal communities of Glefe, Agbogbloshie and Old

Fadama, this paper explores the gradual and evolving adaptive capacities and social resilience to flood hazards among poor urban dwellers. It highlights the depth of understanding and embodied nature of flood experiences among affected slum dwellers and how these are gradually being transformed into adaptive capacities and shaping their responses and resilience. The social, communal and structural responses to flooding resulting from these incremental learning of flood events have also been discussed. Urban policy contributions that can be learned from these

emerging grassroots capacities for flood vulnerability management have been proposed.