An Environmental Non-Governmental Organisation in Action : Performance assessment of the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality

Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs) became very prominent after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Since then, ENGOs, either in the local, regional or global scale, have been instrumental in environmental management in developed and developing countries. A number of studies have been done in diverse ways on these important agents of environmental management. This study investigates the performance of the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM), a local NGO, in some selected mining communities in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem municipality. This thesis is essentially a case study which is situated in the interpretivist (qualitative) philosophy. Among the methods used to collect data were in-depth interview, focus group discussion, observations, and analyses of texts and documents. Main findings of the study suggested that WACAM performed well on the Abilities Model, and this was reflective in the organisation's achievements in the study communities. Moreover, a weak collaboration between Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the NGO was also realised.