Flooding in Accra is no longer an occasional disaster but has become a chronic feature of urban life, according to the Executive Director of the Centre for Social Innovation and Democratic Thought (CSIDT), Eugene Boadu.
Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Afternoon Ghana on Monday, July 27, Eugene Boadu said the city’s flood problem has reached a stage where it requires urgent and coordinated action rather than the reactive approach that has characterised previous responses.
“What we are hoping will evolve from these experiences is a blueprint that will work for Accra but that will over time be adapted for other regions and other places in the country,” he said.
He noted that while Accra does not receive the highest annual rainfall in West Africa, it experiences intense rainfall within short periods, overwhelming a drainage system that was designed decades ago.
“The drainage philosophy to begin with of Accra is archaic,” he said. “Its conception and layout were fit for somewhere in the 1960s and 1980s, and it has not undergone any radical transformation in philosophy and scope since then.”
According to him, the city’s drainage challenges have been made worse by rapid population growth, poor land use planning and the construction of buildings on waterways.
“You have high rainfall, you have a drainage system that hasn’t evolved to meet the times, you have poor land use and then you have a population that keeps surging. You put all that together and the miracle would have been that if we were not having floods,” he said.
Mr. Boadu said the June 2026 floods, which claimed about 12 lives, should serve as a wake-up call.
“These are preventable deaths. These are young men and women… because of the poor layout of the city and the lack of adequate planning these people are dying,” he said.
He also rejected suggestions that Ghanaians should accept flooding as normal simply because developed countries also experience floods.
“I disagree with that mindset,” he said. “In our situation, it is preventable, it is predictable and so it only occurs because we are not able to take the relevant measures.”
Mr. Boadu further questioned the reliability of weather forecasting systems, saying inaccurate public alerts could weaken public confidence during genuine emergencies.
“Every now and then my phone is able to give me a prediction that is much more accurate than what I get from the news. That will tell you a lot,” he said, calling for investment in modern forecasting technologies and precision weather mapping.
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Additionally, the CSIDT Executive Director urged businesses to become active partners in addressing flooding, arguing that the economic cost extends far beyond damaged infrastructure.
“Flood prevention is good economics. It’s good for business,” he said, explaining that floods disrupt productivity, damage private property and increase insurance claims, placing additional strain on businesses and the wider economy.
He proposed that companies redirect part of their corporate social responsibility budgets towards flood prevention initiatives instead of focusing largely on entertainment-related activities.
“We can come to a certain view that because these floods are killing our people and disrupting business in Accra, we will redirect a good chunk of CSR budgets into solving the problem,” he said.
As part of recommendations contained in a report by CSIDT, Mr. Boadu called for the establishment of a national flood management standard to improve coordination among government agencies and other stakeholders responsible for disaster management.
He argued that while Ghana has the institutions and some of the resources needed to respond to floods, the country lacks effective coordination.
“The capacities exist,” he said. “By having a national command that deals with flooding, it can better organise these things so that we can optimise the work that is done.”
