Is climate change really what drives migration in Ghana?

Francis Jarawura, Nauja Kleist, Lily Salloum Lindegaard & Marie Barse

Illustration © Pexels. Jens Mahnke. copyright license

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17-year-old Said lives in a small town in rural Ghana. When he was just 15 years old, he travelled several hundreds of kilometers south on his own to work in an illegal gold mine so that he could earn money to help his parents support their family.

In this special edition of DIIS podcast we’ll learn more about why young people leave their family to work in these mines far away from home with poor security and risk of mercury poisoning. We’ll also get an understanding of migration patterns from Northern Ghana to the South where many of the illegal gold mines are situated today.

And finally, we’ll discuss the role climate change plays and doesn’t play in migration in Ghana.