Evaluating the Effectiveness of Environmental Policies on Coastal Sustainability in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA)

Abstract

Coastal resources are extensively exploited by coastal communities, state, and private entities for numerous benefits across the world. These anthropogenic drivers together with natural factors exert tremendous pressure on the coastal ecosystems thus, making them vulnerable to negative impacts. However, it is not certain how the current and existing environmental legislation and policy formulated to manage coastal resources have impacted their sustainability in Ghana. The paper sought to examine the land cover/land change of coastal zone, the effectiveness of these policies in changing the behavior of polluters in terms of compliance, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. A mixed-method approach was used for data collection. Quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from structured questionnaires, interviews, and field observation. In total, 300 respondents participated in the administration of the questionnaire. Three study areas were involved in this research; Sakumono Community, Kokrobite Community, and South La Community in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA). Results indicated that however 46.5% of the respondents from Sakumono, 57% of this response was also gathered from the Kokrobite community and 86% represented South La respondents weak monitoring and evaluation, 57 % of respondents in the Sakumono community, whilst 54% of respondents in Kokrobite, and 65% of South La attributed weak implementation of policies to inadequate administrative resources for policy actions, favoring economic values over environmental values, and overlapping roles and responsibilities by the various institutions as major obstacles to the effectiveness of environmental policies. The increase in built-up areas recorded over the past decades showed a rise of 2.8% in 2000 to 13.6% in 2010 to a continuous increase of 24.5% in 2020 and has correspondingly resulted in a decrease in vegetation cover along shorelines indicate rapid coastal erosion, Areas covered by water bodies in 2000 was 65.8%, a decline to 53% and further decline to 24.6% in 2020. This marginal performance indicates that legislative instruments such as penalties, sanctions, fines, and environmental auditing were unregulated across the study communities and these regulations were not addressing coastal challenges. Therefore, coastal resources require regulations and policies with clear and defined roles and responsibilities among stakeholders. Additionally, these regulations and policies should involve economic incentives that promote coastal and marine ecosystem conservation.