Community-led nature-based solutions for enhancing climate change preparedness and resilience in semi-arid environments

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) face multiple climatic stressors, poverty, and longstanding economic and environmental challenges. In Ghana, a Nature-based Solution (NbS) initiative called Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) has emerged as a community-led conservation effort with a linked binary objective of natural resources conservation within the bounds of CREMAs and local livelihood enhancement. However, empirical evidence remains limited and unclear regarding how CREMA improves livelihoods and builds a resilient future. Guided by Social-Ecological Systems (SES) theory, our study investigates the relationship between CREMA as an NbS and Climate Change Preparedness (CCP) and Climate Change Resilience (CCR) in the semi-arid Upper West Region of Ghana. We utilized ordered logistic regression to analyze 517 smallholder farmers' cross-sectional data. Our findings showed that the CREMA approach significantly (p < 0.001) enhanced CCP and CCR. The findings highlight that the CREMA has the potential to be scaled up as an NbS initiative for climate adaptation in the semi-arid northwestern Ghana within the Global South.