Mining Effects on Rural Livelihoods, Adopted Strategies and the Role of Stakeholder and Regulatory Institutions in Ghana. Evidence of the Amansie West District of Ghana

Abstract

The study determines the effects of mining on rural livelihoods, adopted strategies and the role of stakeholder and regulatory institutions. The study achieves this by investigating the status of key rural livelihood indicators, what influence the choice of livelihood strategies in mining communities and the assessment of institutional performance. The role of institutions even though a key instrument in ensuring sustainable livelihoods is mostly not considered in livelihood studies of developing countries. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis. The significant difference in the means of income, yield value and labour cost between non-mining and mining communities is an evidence of the threat posed on communities in the study area by mining and its activities. The multinomial logit result showed that farmers’ choice of livelihood in mining communities was influenced by gender, age, family size, leadership status of household head, labour cost, annual household income, number of years of education and extension training. Farmers diversified into non-farm and off-farm livelihood strategies in order to increase or sustain income in mining communities. The study determined the performance of stakeholder and regulatory institutions through their relations and how effective functions are performed. Four (4) institutions namely EPA, MoFA, COCOBOD and Amansie West District Assembly were found significant in their relations to other institutions whilst three (3) institutions were found significant in the performance of their functions. The study concluded that poor relations and ineffective performance of stakeholder and regulatory institutions resulted in unregulated exposure and depletion of livelihood resources such as land, forest and water bodies in mining communities. The study therefore recommended that there should be inter-institutional policy that would link stakeholder and regulatory institutions together for effective performance of functions and sustainable livelihoods.