Challenges and Prospects of Urban Growth on Peri-urban Indigenous Communities: The Case of Danko Community in the Wa Municipal Area

Abstract

The study was undertaken to examine the effects of urban growth on Danko, a peri-urban indigenous community, within the Wa municipal area in the Upper West Region of Ghana. The central aim of the study is to identify the livelihood activities of Danko community; and investigate the extent of impact of urbanization process on the livelihood situation of the indigenous people. It also seeks to examine the mechanisms adopted by the local people to sustain the community's livelihood. The study indicates that the local people of Danko have been affected both positively and negatively due to the growth of Wa municipality. The positive effect includes improved socioeconomic infrastructure in the form of extension of the national electricity grid to some parts of the community and improved physical access to basic school due to increased school infrastructure in the community. However, the explosion of Wa's growth as a municipality has also negatively affected the Danko community, particularly the sustainability of the livelihood of the local people. Thus, the growth has not only led to increase in crime rate and put pressure on available services/facilities, but converted farmlands into other urban land uses, especially residential land use. This situation has greatly affected the major livelihood (farming) of the greater proportion of people in the community. The study, therefore, concludes that although Danko has somehow benefitted from the municipality's growth, the deleterious nature of such growth process is a major challenge to the sustenance of the peri-urban indigenous people.