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Paper short abstract

This paper elucidates drawings from five community case studies to show how gender-responsive collective action through the VSLAs scheme strengthens climate resilience in Ghana by reducing risk, improving women’s access to groundnut seed systems, and strengthening local agency and decision-making.

Paper long abstract

Northern Ghana faces increasing climate risks that undermine rainfed agriculture, particularly for smallholder farmers who depend on groundnut production for food security and income. These risks intersect with persistent gender inequalities in access to land, finance, and agricultural services, constraining women’s adaptive capacity and reinforcing productivity gaps. This paper explores how gendered collective action, operationalized through the Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) scheme, contributes to locally grounded responses to climate-related risk.

Using qualitative evidence from five selected communities viz: —Wantugu, Salankpang, Gbimsi, Baribari, and Tibani—the study analyses VSLAs established under the Tropical Legumes III project in partnership with SEND-Ghana in 2018. The findings show that VSLAs go beyond financial inclusion to act as entry points for changes in gender and social norms. By embedding savings and credit within community-based groundnut seed systems, the VSLAs enable women to collectively invest in quality seed, share climate risk, and reduce reliance on exploitative credit.

The findings show that VSLAs function not only as financial mechanisms but also as social institutions that reshape gender relations, foster local cooperation, and support climate-resilient agricultural practices. Through negotiated access to land, collective decision-making, and community accountability, these associations create alternative pathways for managing climate risk rooted in solidarity and local agency.

From a policy perspective, VSLAs are scalable, cost-effective platforms integrating gender equality, climate adaptation, and seed systems, demonstrating how community-led financial institutions support inclusive, resilient agrarian futures and advance debates on gender, collective action, and climate justice in climate-vulnerable dryland regions.