The West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adaptation (WASCAL) and its partners are considering the development of a groundbreaking mobile app, MIGRAWARE, to enhance migration data collection in Ghana, providing valuable insights into environmentally influenced migration patterns.
The app will utilize cutting-edge technology to collect and analyze data on migration trends, enabling policymakers to make informed decisions. Key features include real-time data collection, geospatial analysis, and sentiment analysis.
The app is part of the Rural, Urban, And Cross-Border Migration in West Africa- An Integrated Assessment Framework of Drivers, Processes, and Sustainable Responses (MIGRAWARE) project, funded by the German Ministry of Education which aims to bridge the gap in migration data, supporting evidence-based policy decisions.
MIGRAWARE app is a game-changer in migration research; we realized that one of the key gaps that we have or we face on migration issues in West Africa is the gap with migration data,” said Dr. Justice Nana Inkoom, Scientific Coordinator of MIGRAWARE-Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
Speaking in an interview after a two-day workshop and project close-out meeting in Accra, Dr. Inkoom added “Our survey of over 2,200 respondents across Ghana’s four ecological zones provides rich insights into environmental and economic drivers of migration.”
He stressed that the MIGRAWARE app has far-reaching implications for migration research and policy development, “By leveraging technology and data analytics, we can create more effective solutions to address the complexities of migration,” he noted.
As Ghana continues to grapple with the challenges of climate change and migration, the MIGRAWARE app offers a promising tool for evidence-based decision-making.
The MIGRAWARE project is a comprehensive research initiative that explores the complex relationships between climate change, environment, and migration in Ghana. Conducted in collaboration with local and international partners, the project sheds light on the nuances of migration patterns in West Africa.
Dr. Safi Sanfo, Scientific Coordinator at WASCAL, representing the Executive Director said the MIGRAWARE project demonstrates the power of science-policy collaborations in addressing climate change and migration challenges.
Stakeholders at the two-day workshop and project close-out meeting discussed the app’s potential and the project’s findings. Attendees included representatives from government agencies, international organizations, academia, and civil society.
The stakeholders highlighted the significance of the project’s outcomes, including: a migration governance framework to support government policies, remote sensing and GIS analysis to understand migration patterns as well as a social media analysis (GeoTweets) to gauge public perceptions.
The meeting focused on a series of dialogue sessions to deliberate on current development and parallel efforts focusing on methods of researching migration and climate change, technological advancement for researching migration trends, recent migration policy and instruments and their challenges or opportunities aimed at managing migration in Ghana, as well as institutional challenges and efforts of curbing negative migration effect in Ghana.
It also addressed the MIGRAWARE project overview, intended outcomes, attained results, challenges, and successes. It also discussed vital recommendations and explore the opportunities of the project to fix the gaps.
The MIGRAWARE project, one of six project areas under the WASCAL Research Action Plan 2021 – 2024 (WRAP 2.0), was implemented within three years with a half-year extension.
The project traversed three countries: Ghana, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. It was implemented by a multidisciplinary team of fourteen partners made up of academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and consulting agencies from the implementation countries and Germany.
The project aimed to propose an integrated assessment framework to identify core climate and environmentally induced migration drivers and processes and to propose sustainable responses within a rural-urban and cross–border context of West Africa.