Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience |  University of Cape Coast

Kate Baidu is a passionate climate adaptation researcher dedicated to enhancing community resilience through inclusive and evidence-based approaches. She is currently pursuing an MPhil in Blue Economy, Governance & Social Resilience at the University of Cape Coast, where she is affiliated with ACECoR as a graduate researcher.

Her thesis research explores the social, environmental, and economic impacts of coastal adaptation strategies in five vulnerable Ghanaian communities: Ada, Cape Coast, Fuveme, Ankobra, and Anlo Beach. Each community has implemented a different strategy, including sea defence structures, managed retreat, beach nourishment, accommodative infrastructure, and mangrove restoration.

Using a Social Cost-Benefit Analysis (SCBA) framework, Kate’s work integrates qualitative and quantitative methods. She calculates normalized perception scores from Likert-scale and binary data to assess perceived costs and benefits across financial, environmental, social, opportunity, and labour dimensions. This is complemented by Willingness to Pay (WTP) and Willingness to Accept (WTA) estimations to assign monetary value to community preferences, losses, and perceived gains. Her mixed-methods approach captures local knowledge, stakeholder perceptions, and lived experiences often overlooked in top-down evaluations.

Beyond her academic research, Kate has shown strong commitment to community development and environmental justice. She served as a supervisor on the Young Africa Innovates Programme, implemented by UNDP and funded by the Mastercard Foundation, mentoring youth-led sustainability projects. She also contributed to the Beyond Waste Project, training waste pickers in Cape Coast to upcycle waste materials into useful products, promoting circular economy solutions. Her participation in the Ghana Climate University Network (GCUN) short course on Indigenous Knowledge in Climate Adaptation deepened her engagement with grassroots and traditional knowledge systems.

Kate believes that policy without people is paperwork and that true climate justice listens to the quietest voices and acts on their truths. Her goal is to influence national policies on climate resilience and youth participation by bridging environmental economics with participatory climate governance.