17. The Environment

The environment is an extremely wide subject area, including everything from air quality to global warming. For a country such as Ghana, which can still be categorised as a developing economy, the priority environmental issues are likely to be somewhat different to those of developed industrial countries and, therefore, policy priorities, dimensions and instruments are also likely to differ. Ghana is a country which has the equator at its southern coast on the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel at its northern border with Burkina Faso. The climatic and ecological profile ranges from hot and humid at the coast to hot and dry in the north. It should be noted that a contemporary publication has provided a valuable discussion of the environmental dimensions of Ghana’s development (Twerefou & Tutu, 2017) and this chapter aims to complement it. This chapter overlaps quite considerably with the subject matter of other parts of this book, and this will be limited as far as is possible. For example, Chap. 14 dealing with energy and water includes important environmental matters including resource depletion, energy efficiency and the health implications of water and sanitation systems.