NGOs Interventions and Food Security in Northern Ghana

Food security remained one of the most pressing development challenges in Northern Ghana, where poverty rates, climate vulnerability, and limited infrastructure converged to create persistent food insecurity across multiple dimensions. The widely accepted definition of food security, developed at the 1996 World Food Summit, established that food security existed when all people, at all times, had physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that met their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. This framework encompassed four interconnected dimensions: food availability, food access, food utilisation, and food stability. In the Upper West Region, where over 80 percent of the population engaged in smallholder farming yet agricultural productivity remained constrained by erratic rainfall patterns, limited access to inputs, inadequate storage facilities, and poor market access, the role of non-governmental organisations in addressing food security had become critically significant. The Nandom Municipality, with its predominantly agrarian economy and vulnerability to climate change, provided a compelling context for examining how NGOs could move beyond traditional aid models to address the multidimensional nature of food insecurity. This study examined the food security interventions of the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) in the Nandom Municipality, focusing on the Building Climate Adaptation Capacities (BCAC) project and the Healthy Future for All (HF4A) project. The BCAC project, implemented in partnership with GIZ and the European Union, constructed 23 mechanised boreholes, trained Water and Sanitation Management Teams to manage the facilities, and supported over 1,000 farmers with climate information to enhance food security. The HF4A project, funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, constructed 21 solar-powered water systems, 275 handwashing facilities, and established a sanitation revolving fund of GH¢1,159,601 managed by the Nandom Rural Bank. SNV also supported the Home Grown School Feeding Programme, which linked smallholder farmers to a ready market through the Ghana School Feeding Prog.