The Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS) held a two-day (11 – 12 August) virtual inception meeting to commence its Coastal Community Resilience to Climate and Diarrhoea (C2R-CD) Project. In presenting the overview, the Principal Investigator (PI), Dr. Dzidzo Yirenya-Tawiah who is a senior research fellow at the Institute, emphasised the centrality of climate change in the global sustainability challenge, its impacts on health and the need to build resilience.
In welcoming the participants, the Director of the Institute, Professor Kwasi Appeaning Addo who is also the Work Package 1 lead of the project reiterated the role of IESS in promoting cutting edge research in line with its vision of becoming an Academic Centre of Excellence for Environmental and Developmental issues.
The Provost of College of Basic and Applied Sciences (CBAS) of the University of Ghana, Professor Daniel Asiedu who chaired the meeting expressed his happiness about the C2R-CD project, saying it aligns strongly with the University of Ghana’s focus on promoting transdisciplinary research. He highlighted the significant and active role of IESS in teaching and research at the University of Ghana. While congratulating the PI and the entire research team, he remained expectant that the C2R-CD project would result in groundbreaking findings that promote resilience to climate change and diarrhoea in coastal landscapes.
Goodwill messages from the project’s international and local partners emphasise the importance of the collaboration and the appropriateness of the research project. The project’s partner from the Aarhus University in Denmark represented by Professor Dennis Trolle particularly praised the Ghana Team for the satisfactory progress made in view of the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The meeting also featured overview presentations from the five work packages and the PhD students enrolled on the project, and had in attendance representatives from municipal/district assemblies of study communities.
About the C2R-CD Project
The Coastal Community Resilience to Climate and Diarrhoea (C2R-CD) Project aims at building resilience to climate change and improving diarrhoeal management in coastal communities. It is a transdisciplinary research with local and international partnerships made up of the Academia (University of Ghana, IESS leading with other units, Aarhus University, Denmark), Civil Society Group (Peoples Dialogue on Human Settlements) and Government Agencies (the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency, Municipal assemblies of study communities).
To learn more about the C2R-CD Project, click here