BRAVE: A 2-day training lab on adaptive social protection

Members of the BRAVE Project team were recently in Ghana to run three days of training workshops with in-country partners and other key stakeholders in the Ghanaian Water Sector. Participants came from government departments, NGOs and academia. The workshop was designed as a place for scientific exploration of the BRAVE project, learning collaboratively and pulling through key messages from BRAVE to support key stakeholders working in different departments across Ghana.

We carried out a two day Adaptive Social Protection training (ASP), initially from the DfID funded ASPIRE Project and training lab see ASPIRE Training Lab 2019, Dakar, Senegal. The training created a collaborative space for stakeholders from multiple sectors and government agencies, enhance dialogue and understanding around social protection and adaptive social protection and make better use of climate and livelihoods information to support decision making with the aim of building livelihoods that are resilient to water insecurity, drought, flood and other climate shocks.

The first day focused on exploring the concept of adaptive social protection and its application. The second day applied participants knowledge using a case study approach, the October 2019 flooding in Ghana, looking in detail at:

• What information was available and when?
• What actions were taken and when?
• What information and actions could have been made available to improve the reaction to an event such as flooding?

Importantly, this workshop was co-hosted by the National Disaster Management Organisation in Accra, Ghana. We are grateful for their support and help in facilitating this training. We had an outstanding attendance for the ASP workshop, with 40 people joining for day 1 and 46 people on day 2 from around 20 different organisations, to name a few:

• National Disaster Management Organisations (NADMO)
• Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMET)
• Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS)
• Ministry of Gender
• Water Resource Institute (WRI)

Inter-governmental networks and connections developed as a result of the training lab and several commitments were made towards the realisation of ASP services in Ghana. For example, following this training, CONIWAS will share the importance of ASP inclusion in policy with the Parliament of Ghana and participants from the University of Ghana are looking to include ASP into their existing Disaster Management Course.

‘From the gender perspective, especially when we have more vulnerability there, we need to have what we have been calling adaptive social protection. I think I will take this up, and appreciate the difference ... We are now in a position where there is a need for every actor to understand Social Protection … so we need to have the space for politicians to understand adaptive social protection.’

Participant from the Ministry of Gender

‘We want to assure you that you have ambassadors for Ghana – and we are all going to send a message to support Adaptive Social Protection, and make sure floods are a thing of the past.’

Participant from the CSIR-WRI

The Adaptive Social Protection training course is part of the Walker Academy, the capacity building arm of the Walker Institute.

If the ASP training interests you, please do not hesitate to contact us on academy@walker.ac.uk or check out more information on this and our Household Economy Methodology (HEA). It is a very exciting time for the Walker Academy as we grow and develop innovative and tailor-made courses, building capacity together towards sustainable and resilient livelihoods for all.