Due to the terrible climate change witnessed in the Upper East Region in recent times, especially in the area of the continuous change pattern of rainfall during the actual farming season, people of the Upper East Region requested the government for an intervention to provide a dam to assist them in dry season farming activities and luckily their request was granted the by the President of the Republic of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
So clearly, Upper East Region is one of the benefited regions when it comes to the government flagship policy of One Village One Dam (1V1D). Even though the policy was initiated by the government with good heart, it appears representatives of the farming communities in the Upper East Region are not pleased with its implementations by the government.
In Upper East Region, according to the Update on sighted by Apexnewsgh.com on the Website of the then Ministry for Special Development Initiative, 150 small dams were supposed to be constructed across the 15 MMDAs with each MMDAs benefiting 10 small dams for their various communities.
However, our visit to most of the dams shows that some are already drying up in the month of January and farmers are not too excited about such development.
Engaging the Upper East Regional Focal Person for Peasant Farmer Association of Ghana Rev. John Akaribo in an exclusive interview on the effect of Climate Change on peasant farmer in the Upper East Region of Ghana especially with regards government policy of One Village One Dam (1V1D), Rev. Akaribo describes the policy as a very successful programme, successful initiative, laudable initiative but, insisted the implementation of the policy was a 100 percent complete failure.
“The policy itself is a success, implementation is a failure. It was a very successful programme, is a very successful initiative, it was a laudable initiative but, implementation is 100 percent complete failure. If you are ready without any fear or favor, get the time and call me to send you to some of the 1V1D in this region and I will send you round and you will see if there is any dam that can boast of enough water in the reservoir, let alone to talk of whether they have been able to use it for a quarter-acre garden. If it is not there then, what is it? What was the purpose of One Village One Dam? It was to help our women, to help our vulnerable so that can be doing some small small garden over there and also to water our animals. Then if you dug the thing and there was no water and it has not achieved any objective and for that matter, I will say is a failure”. He stressed
However, he further advised the government to revisit the policy with good ideas and involve technical experts needed to offer them good and proper advice on how to make the policy a success.
“So, the government should go back and re-engineered those dams, they should involve ideas, they should involve engaging development authorities, they should have the technical know-how, they should involve the Agric engineering department so that they do it well”.
However, he is confident that with the government policy of One Village One Dam (1V1D), if handled well, the stressful situation of ‘Climate Change’ affecting farmers in the Upper East Region will drastically reduce because farming needs a constant water supply.
However, Joe Biden the President of the United State is preparing to deal with climate change in a way no U.S. president has done before – by mobilizing his entire administration to take on the challenge from every angle in a strategic, integrated way.
Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen
Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 0555568093.
