In the Upper West Region of Ghana, there are pressing challenges for agriculture and food. These include: climate variability; food insecurity; land tenure issues; constrained access to credit, water, farm inputs, markets and storage; and the lack of political commitment. To bring fresh thinking on how to tackle these challenges, we turned to Transformative Scenario Planning (TSP) — a process developed by Reos Partners that brings together stakeholders from diverse and often conflicting perspectives and transforms their thinking around complex issues. In so doing, TSP helps people to imagine the ways that the future can be changed, and to identify the leverage points that can facilitate this change.

In this brief we describe the processes undertaken during our TSP workshops in Wa (June and November 2016), including the possible responses and actions brainstormed by the participants that could pave the way to greater agricultural and food security in the region.