The M&E team of the Program Implementation Unit (PIU) Scaling Up Renewal Energy Program (SREP) right after the launch at Lala in May, decided to conduct a quick assessment of the communities under the project. The last baseline study was conducted in 2019, and owing to the time lag, there was a need for this re-assessment.

From Accra, the team made its way to Dambai where cars and people were ferried to the island aboard a pontoon. The event kicked off on the island of Lala, and yes Ghana has over 100 islands, scattered over in the Volta Lake Basin straddling four regions.

The main source of transport within the islands is by motorized canoes, manned by a sailor and in some cases an assistant, forming a two-man team. Whilst the sailor steers, his colleague is on the lookout. The boats navigate tree stumps as well as fishing nets setup to catch fish in the lake.

Internet and mobile coverage are patchy at best, thus sometimes for long hours one cannot communicate via phone on the lake. Intermittent rain can suddenly pour on the lake, blurring visibility and making the voyage even more dangerous. The indigenes through experience seemed to have their own meteorology system, which can demonstrate an uncanny accuracy in predicting when it will rain and the duration of the rain.

Each PIU team comprised engineers, with two enumerators and other PIU staff. The population on the islands vary between 150-2000 residents and demographics consist of fisherfolks predominately male dominated with the women mostly, smoking, drying and selling fish. Subsistence farming is the main source of livelihood.

The rapid assessment exercise though brief gave the M&E Team an opportunity to interact with indigenes on the island. These indigenes who live the challenges hold the sharpest insight for change because they see it, feel it and have the strongest reason to see it addressed.