Drowning by Design: How Accra chose its floods

Nature will keep sending water to Accra every June; whether it arrives in a city designed to receive it, or one arranged to be ruined by it, is a human decision deferred for thirty years.

Singapore receives nearly three times Accra's rainfall yet rarely suffers catastrophic flooding: its water agency polices drainage reserves ruthlessly, requires developers to detain stormwater on site, and under its Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters programme has turned drains into assets; a three-kilometre concrete canal was remade in 2012 as a meandering river through Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, doubling as a floodplain in storms.

Third, infrastructure and waste: complete the World Bank-financed drainage and detention works, then fund their upkeep through a ring-fenced annual maintenance levy, Dutch-style, rather than episodic emergency contracts; require new developments to retain stormwater on site, as Singapore does; extend waste collection to every neighbourhood, impose producer responsibility on the plastics industry, and enforce dumping penalties, paired with public education that links duty to service, because residents stop dumping when the trucks actually come.