UDS’ CCEIR To Be Upgraded Into An Educational Institution

UDS Vice Chancellor

The Centre for Continuing Education and Interdisciplinary Research (CCEIR) of the University for Development Studies (UDS) will soon be upgraded into an institute to run cultural studies programmes at the postgraduate level.  

This would be in line with the broader objective of expanding the university’s mandate by utilising the rich cultural diversity of its operational area which comprised of the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions of Ghana where it had four campuses.

The announcement, which came to light at the 2013 edition of the annual UDS Harmattan School organized by the CCEIR in Tamale, would further consolidate the commitment of the university to foster cultural integration by making practical, theoretical methodologies. 

In a speech read for him, the Vice Chancellor of the UDS Professor Haruna Yakubu, believed that such innovative thought could harness positive cultural practices that could be employed to galvanise support to adaptive strategies to neutralise the effects of climate change.

The Harmattan School is one of the several platforms created by the UDS and opened to researchers, civil society organisations, policymakers, and non-governmental organisations to meet and brainstorm on developmental issues confronting Northern Ghana in particular and the country at large.

The event is not just a platform for academic peer review but most importantly, an avenue for the discovery of practical solutions to address the developmental challenges of Northern Ghana.

Under the theme: “Accelerating Socio-Economic Development in Northern Ghana through Culture and Climate Change Adaptation”, the 2013 edition is the seventh in a series organized by the CCEIR which is the lead organizer of the annual event.

According to Prof. Yakubu, an energy and climate change expert, equally important to accelerating socio-economic development of Northern Ghana through culture and climate change adaptation was the issue of gender parity, stressing that “cultural insensitivity to gender parity consideration which in part can be attributed to long standing cultural practices can seriously repudiate adaptive strategies to climate change.”

On account of this, he said the Harmattan School must give recognition to gender in analysing culture and climate change adaptation, adding that, the success of culture and climate change adaptive strategies would to a large degree depend on the empowerment and participation of all in the decision making process.

Prof. Yakubu emphasised, that women were discernibly better at decision-making of the type that climate change adaptation required, hence greater inclusion of women could improve adaptive decision making in general and reduce the negative impact of climate change on accelerated socio-economic development of Northern Ghana.

He continued: “The degree to which human and food security, environment and sustainable developments are vulnerable depends largely on the exposures to changes in climate and the ability of mitigating strategies to adapt. Climate change adaptive strategies vary according to systems in which they occur, the climatic stir that prompts them, their procedures and effects. Above the capabilities, the culture and believes of the communities to be responsive to the impacts and risks of climate change are necessary to achieving accelerated socio-economic development”, he noted.

However, Professor Yakubu observed that, the neglect or failure of development practitioners and policymakers to identify the relevance of culture and climate change adaptive strategies to accelerate socio-economic development had always been the missing link to complement development tools indicators. 

The Vice Chancellor of the UDS also stated that adaptation to climate change had the potential to substantially lessen many of the adverse impacts of climate change and enhanced beneficial impacts. 

Most communities in Northern Ghana, he further observed, were reasonably adaptable to changes in average conditions, particularly if they were gradual. However, these communities he indicated were more vulnerable and less adaptable to changes in the frequency and magnitude of conditions other than average.

He acknowledged that Northern Ghana was not new to adaptations to climate change, saying the methodologies might not be very helpful thus the need for the Harmattan School to adopt new strategies.

Meanwhile, Prof. Yakubu was hopeful that the Harmattan School would present a very scientific working document that could be used to remedy the negative effects of climate change on accelerated development of Northern Ghana.