Water no get enemy: Why Kanta didn’t flood this year

Over the past several years, I've had the privilege of being part of the team building The Or Foundation's Community Ecological Care Network (CECN) alongside retailers, waste workers, scientists and community leaders across Accra.

Our community ambassadors reported no flooding within Kantamanto's market, not because the rain was less intense or because climate change took a day off, but because months of consistent maintenance, textile diversion, ecological restoration and collaboration had improved the market's ability to move water through a landscape that has always known where Water wants to go.

Ahead of this year's rainy season, that meant working with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the market leadership to clear the canal into which much of Kantamanto's drainage eventually empties, excavating an informal dumpsite that had gradually narrowed the Water's path by removing over 100 truck loads of waste and preparing the system before the rains arrived.