Blue Economy, Social Resilience, and Sustainable Development Goals in Ghana

Abstract

For years resource economists studied the potentials of the green economy and how to achieve growth and development through it. The blue economy (i.e., the ocean resources) is an alternative that could drive growth and development. Human beings’ interactions with the oceans, in terms of exploitation and use of its resource have been changing causing an unsustainable use of the ocean. How to sustainably exploit and use ocean resources has lately come to be known as the blue economy. This study relates the blue economy to social resilience and sustainable development goals in Ghana. The first empirical chapter examines the socioeconomic characteristics of coastal communities and its implications for the blue economy using the Ghana Living Standard Survey round 7, and ordinary least squares regression (and descriptive, charts and tables). The second empirical chapter explores the state of social resilience of fishermen using primary data. The third empirical chapter did a systematic literature review on blue economy link to sustainable development goals. It was found that most marine communities in Ghana have some level of poor amenities that are potential threats to the blue economy. On another note, coastal households enjoy high welfare living, which is good ground for the blue economy principles as livelihood diversification could reduce pressure on fishing. However, rural coastal communities’ have appalling socioeconomic characteristics. Fishermen along the coast of Ghana are socially resilient to some extent. Also, the blue economy has a link to majority of the SDGs particularly goal 14. Policy lens should incorporate socio-economic concerns into blue economy strategies.