Conflict in Northern Ghana appears to be increasing in amplitude and frequency and its effects are getting more devastating. It is the view of this book that The Government of Ghana and civil society organisations involved in aspects of conflict management have approached peace issues in the region with an inadequate understanding of the local issues that divide and unite the people, or using sufficient resources to pre-emt conflict. In 2003 The Mole V summit was held in Damongo to discuss strategic directions for comprehensive development and poverty reduction in Northern Ghana as a mechanism for supporting conflict management. It is the aim of this publication to contribute to the proposed plan by suggesting past and current conflict management resources and mechanisms which could be employed. The suggestions are informed by surveys, which are oulined in the book, of particular conflicts in the three northern Regions of Ghana between 2006 and 2008 - their histories, causes and efforts and their resolution.

This paper investigates the importance of the historical construction of chieftaincy, and the interaction of traditional institutions with the state, in structuring the inter-ethnic conflicts of the Northern Region of Ghana between 1980 and 2002. During this period, the area experienced a series of episodes of large-scale violence, culminating in the 1994-1995 conflict that cost thousands of lives. This crisis has been interpreted variously as an interethnic civil war or as a rebellion against the traditional authority of some groups over others. Labelling the clashes in these terms, however, may disguise more than it informs, as tradition and its cousin discourses of ethnicity, are socially constructed and politically contested both at local and national levels. In Ghana, the powers of political and traditional leaders overlap and interrelate, making direct competition over access to traditional state structures important to these conflicts. Moreover, since most of Ghana’s conflicts are connected with chiefs, traditional leadership in Ghana has become associated with a combined development and security discourse. The paper draws on interviews with members of the affected ethnic groups conducted in villages in the eastern part of the Northern Region in July and August 2005 and a review of primary and secondary documentary sources to provide a nuanced analysis of the social tensions. It challenges the common view of Ghana as a peaceful country, exempt from ethnic conflict. It also makes the case for alleviating some of the pressures that have caused such communal violence through careful review of traditional institutions and a constructive state presence providing effective security and discursive outlets for disputes.

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Africa, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, language: English, abstract: This text tries to determine what factors accounted for the emergence, escalation and protracted nature of the dispute between the Gonjas and the Nawuris. Moreover, it looks at the efforts that have been made to resolve the conflict and how they have been implemented. This also raises the questions of why the conflict remains intractable notwithstanding attempts made to resolve it and how the conflict can be settled for peaceful co-existence in the area. Conflict is as old as the human society or human race. People have disputed and competed against one another over scarce commodities, land, power, resources, and ideology and sometime religion. Conflict in teams or in groups is inevitable. This means that at any point in time people are bound to disagree over issues. There is no human ability that can predetermine the results of these conflicts. Conflict when not properly addressed may escalate to negative impacts which include civil war, better still if addressed, it can lead to positive relations geared towards development. In view of this, Awedoba defined conflict as a clash of ideas, wills, interests or opinions a relationship between two or more parties that center on differences, disagreements, incompatibilities. Most of these conflicts are within state as opposed to interstate and often occur between ethnic groups. Looking at conflict as a struggle or contest between people with opposing needs, ideas, beliefs, values, or goals, there is the need to examine the nature and type of conflict that existed at a particular place within a period of time. To this far, Corser describes conflict as "a struggle over values, claims to status, power, and scarce resources in which the aims of the opposing parties are not only to the desired values but also to neutralize, injure, or eliminate rivals". Most of these conflicts are ethnic in nature which makes people to see themselves as one with common interests and values thereby pushing further.

Although African ethnicity has become a highly fertile field of enquiry in recent years, most of the research is concentrated on southern and central Africa, and has passed Ghana by. This volume extends many of the distilled insights, but also modifies them in the light of the Ghanaian evidence. The collection is multidisciplinary in scope and spans the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial contexts. A central contention of the volume is that, while there were significant regional variations, ethnicity was not purely a colonial `invention'. The boundaries of `we-groups' have constantly mutated from pre-colonial times, while European categorization owed much to indigenous ways of seeing. The contributors explore the role of European administrators and recruitment officers as well as African cultural brokers in shaping new identities. The interaction of gender and ethnic consciousness is explicitly addressed. The volume also examines the formulation of the national question in Ghana today - in debates over language policy and conflicts over land and chieftaincy.

Conflict in Northern Ghana appears to be increasing in amplitude and frequency and its effects are getting more devastating. It is the view of this book that the Government of Ghana and civil society organisations involved in aspects of conflict management have approached peace issues in the region with an inadequate understanding of the local issues that divide and unite the people, or using sufficient resources to preempt conflict. In 2003 The Mole V summit was held in Damongo to discuss strategic directions for comprehensive development and poverty reduction in Northern Ghana as a mechanism for supporting conflict management. It is the aim of this publication to contribute to the proposed plan by suggesting past and current conflict management resources and mechanisms which could be employed. The suggestions are informed by surveys, which are oulined in the book, of particular conflicts in the three northern Regions of Ghana between 2006 and 2008 - their histories, causes and effects and their resolution.