Community-driven Development for 3 Communities in Fanteakwa South Municipality, Ghana

World Centric + Advocates for Community Alternatives

$29,894.00 from profits from fiscal year 2019

In Fanteakwa South, Ghana, two mining companies have operated for decades, destroying farmland with little or no compensation to communities and leaving them in abject poverty. The government plans to allow a massive influx of mining companies in the protected forest reserve that locals depend on for clean water and natural resources. The communities do not know how to defend their rights, strengthen their resistance, and pursue an alternative development future of their own choice.

Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA) will apply a combined advocacy, engagement, and mobilization strategy that arms communities with the legal firepower they need. ACA organizes community members around a development vision of their own choice and connects them with the allies in local and national government they need to defend themselves. ACA has implemented this program in other mining communities in Ghana and seen the ability to provide for basic needs, resist the mining company, and unite for development all increase.f

The Impact

• 3650 individuals benefit from community organizing.
• Disbursal of microgrants to fund development projects of their choice.
• Legal advocacy and action to strengthen community resistance to mining.
• Quarterly meetings between communities and the local government

Indirect Impact:

• Participants' household income increases by 10% over baseline.
• Women's small businesses increases by 10% over baseline.
• Mining activities take place only where communities approve them.
• Watersheds, primary forests, and other sensitive environmental areas are protected.
• Increases in social cohesion, civic engagement and expressions of solidarity for participating communities.
• Women participating in leadership roles will double.

About Advocates for Community Alternative

A World Centric partner since 2020.

Advocates for Community Alternatives helps West African communities that are threatened by the destructive impacts of extractives-led development to take control of their own futures. They do this by working with communities to design their own sustainable development plans and advocate to achieve those plans. ACA builds networks of lawyers and other experts to help the communities’ plans come to fruition.