Local government and climate literacy: exploring community perspectives in Ghana’s coastal zones

Effective climate change education by District Assemblies is crucial for fostering community adaptation. A cross-sectional survey design with a quantitative method was adopted to examine coastal residents’ perceptions of District Assemblies in climate change education. A sample size of 420 was proportionally drawn from Akwidaa, Anlo Beach, Ampenyi and Gomoa Fetteh in the Western and Central Regions of Ghana, respectively. The findings indicated that 53% of coastal residents strongly agreed that District Assemblies play a critical role in climate change education. Yet, 72% believed these assemblies have not adequately educated their communities in the past 5 years. In addition, 45.5% rated their access to climate change information from District Assemblies as very poor. There was a statistically significant influence of the community on respondents’ satisfaction with public climate change education (β = 0.400; p = 0.000). Furthermore, the results revealed that the type of communicator, the information channel employed, trust in DAs, and attention to climate change information influenced climate education effectiveness. The study underscores the need for enhancing structural and systemic factors within communities in climate change education than individual socio-demographic factors to improve climate literacy and foster effective environmental stewardship in Ghana's coastal regions.