
About Us
Brief History
The Bawku Municipality with its administrative capital at Bawku is one of the fifteen (15) MMDAs in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The Municipality was upgraded from the then Bawku District Assembly, through the Local Government (Bawku District Assembly) (Establishment) Instrument, 1989 (L.I. 1439). This was revoked on 17th of March 2004 by the legislative instrument, (L.I. 1798) including Binduri and Pusiga. It was then gazetted on the 28th of May 2004 and entered into force on the 16th July 2004. The legislative instrument, (L.I 1798) was also revoked on the 15th Day of March, 2012 by legislative instrument, (L.I 2144) which paved the way for the carving out of the two new districts; Binduri and Pusiga districts.
About Us
The Municipality has a population of 98,538 persons, with the males being 47,254 (48.0 percent) and females 51,284 (52.0 percent). The dependency ratio in the municipality is 87.4; the child dependency ratio is 40.3 whiles old age dependency ratio is 6.3. The sex ratio is 92.1. The urban population is 63.6 percent whiles the rural population constitutes 36.4 percent. The Bawku municipal has a total land area of 247.23720 sq.km and it is located approximately between latitudes 11 o 11 and 100 40 North and longitude 0o 18 W and 0o 6 E in the north eastern corner of the region. It shares boundaries with Pusiga District to the North, Binduri District to the South, Garu-Tempane District to the East and Bawku West to the West
PHYSICAL AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
Introduction
Bawku Municipality with its administrative capital at Bawku is one of the thirteen districts and municipalities in the Upper East Region of Ghana. It was established on the 15th Day of March, 2012 by legislative instrument, L.I 2144
Location and Size
The Municipality has a total land area of 247.24 (sq.km) which is 2.8 percent of the total regional land size of 8,842 (sq.km) and is located approximately between latitudes 10o 401 and 11o 111 North and longitude 0o 61 E and 0o 181w in the north-eastern corner of the region. It shares boundaries with Pusiga District to the East, Binduri District to the West, Garu-Tempane District to the South and South-East and an international boundary with Burkina Faso to the North.
Relief and Drainage
The Municipality is underlain mainly by Birrimian and granite rock formation. In areas bordering the tributaries of the White Volta River, the relief is generally low and slightly undulating with heights of 120-150 meters above sea level. Outcrops of rocks are also found in many areas.
The Bawku Municipality is drained mainly by the tributaries of White Volta. Other streams which influence the drainage system include Kulpielga and the Poanaba Kayinchingo. Except in a few areas around the river basin where the drainage becomes poor because of seasonal flooding the area is generally well drained
Climate
As with the whole of the Upper East Region, Bawku Municipality is part of the interior continental climatic zone of the country characterized by pronounced dry and wet seasons. The two seasons are influenced by two oscillating air masses. First is the warm, dusty and dry harmattan air mass which blows in the north easterly direction across the whole Municipality from the Sahara Desert. During the period of its influence (late November – early March) rainfall is entirely absent and relative humidity rarely exceeds 20% during the day but may rise to 60% during the nights and early mornings. Temperatures are usually modest at this time of the year by tropical standards (260c – 280c).
The wet season ranges between May to October. During this period, the whole of the West African sub region including Bawku Municipality is under the influence of a deep tropical maritime air mass. This air mass together with rising conviction currents, provide the Municipality with rains.
The total rainfall amounts to averagely 800m per annum. A striking characteristic of the rainfall worth noting is the extreme variability and unreliability both between and within seasons. Another striking characteristic is the large quantity of rain water normally lost through evapotranspiration from open water surfaces. Estimates of the volume of rain water loss vary from 1.55mm 1.65mm per annum
Vegetation
The vegetation is mainly of the Sahel Savanna type consisting of open Savannah with fire swept grassland separating deciduous trees among which may be seen a few broad-leaved and fire-leached tree species. The forest reserve in the Municipality is the one at Upper Temne Black 5 located at Kuka. These are protected areas by local authorities and the Municipal Assembly. The Climatic conditions render the Municipality susceptible to bush fires in the dry season and thus exacerbate environmental degradation and poverty in the Municipality.
Soils
Soils in the District are generally of the savanna ochrosol type. Detailed soil classification reveals four different soil series. There are:
Varempare series, it is found mostly around Bawku and surrounding settlement. They are mainly sandy loams associated with hornblende and granites. They are quite permeable with moderately good water retention capacity and are suitable for the cultivation of cereals and legumes.
Tafali series, similar to the varempare series and found around Binduri and surrounding settlements
Gule and Brenyasi series, they occur in the low slope and valleys. These are clay loams used for the cultivation of rice, sorghum (naga red) and dry season vegetables (Onions and Tomatoes) The soils in Bawku Municipality as typified by research results at Manga, show low nutrient properties compared with the standard (see Table 3). This renders the fertility of the soils low and normally requires the application of organic manure and chemical fertilizer to support cropping.
Table 4: Standard Nutrient properties of soils
NUTRIENT | LOW | MEDIUM | HIGH |
P | 0 – 10 ppm | 10 – 20 | >20 |
K | 0 – 50/75 ppm | 50 – 100/150 | >100/150 |
Organic M | 0 1% | 1 – 2.5 | >2.5 |
SOURCE: Savanna Agricultural Research Institute, Manga, 2013
Demographic characteristics
Population size and distribution
According to the 2010 Population and Housing Census data, the Municipality has a total population of 98,538, constituting 9.4 percent of the regional population of 1,046,545. Out of this figure, 52.0 percent were females while 48.0 percent were males. The population density of the Municipality as of that time was 398.56 people per sq. km and a growth rate of 1.2 percentt which is the same as the Regional growth rate.
As of 2017, the Municipality’s projected population stands at 114,257 with a growth rate of 1.5 (Ghana Statistical Service, 2017). By this projection the Bawku Municipality has added 15,719 to its population within a period of 7 years. This is quite alarming taking into consideration the resources available to the Municipality.
With a total projected population of 114,257, the Municipality has a projected population density of 462.13 people per sq. km.
Again according to the 2010 population and housing census 40% of the people were in the urban areas and 60% in the rural areas. This means that 39,415 number of the people lived in urban areas and 59,123 in rural areas. By implication it means that 45,703 people now (2017) live in the urban areas while 68,554 people now live in the rural areas of Bawku.
Table 5: Yearly projected population of the Municipality up to 2020
Year | Male | Female | Total |
2017 | 56,123 | 58,134 | 114,257 |
2018 | 57,457 | 59,455 | 116,912 |
2019 | 58,818 | 60,772 | 119,590 |
2020 | 60,192 | 62,143 | 122,335 |
Source: Ghana Statistical Service, 2017
Figure 4: Projected population of Bawku Municipal, 2017-2021
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