Disasters are increasingly becoming normalised in Ghana. Road crashes claim lives with disturbing regularity, market fires consume the investments and dreams of traders, and each rainy season arrives with a familiar fear: that floods will once again devastate communities across the country. The tears of traders in Agbogbloshie, Okaishie, Kaneshie, and Kumasi are scarcely dry before another tragedy emerges.

When loss becomes predictable, it ceases to be merely an unfortunate event and begins to reflect deeper structural and behavioural problems. Ghana's recurring floods raise an uncomfortable question: Are these tragedies truly natural disasters or the predictable consequences of human behaviour, institutional failures, and weaknesses in urban governance?

We counted the bodies in 2015, and we are again counting the dead in 2026. In June 2015, Ghana lost over 150 lives in the fire-flood disaster at Circle. Eleven years later, the June 2026 floods have officially claimed at least 35 lives, with a good number missing. The images are heartbreaking, but perhaps even more troubling is the familiarity of the tragedy. These figures only tell part of a sad story. Others may have suffered immediate fatalities, but there are many hidden, long-term psychological and socioeconomic casualties. What of those who did not die that day, yet silently lost livelihoods, their homes, their businesses, their dignity, their hope and in many ways, part of themselves? My experience as an interventionist and counsellor to the affected right from 4^th June 2015, at Circle, confirms my professional reflection that “some deaths are recorded in statistics while others unfold silently in the human mind”. 

As a lead psychologist, a responder to many past disasters in Ghana and a senior faculty member of the Centre for Urban Management Studies, I want to start this feature article by saying that “the greatest tragedy of a nation is not that disasters occur, but that its people begin to expect them, prepare to endure them, and eventually mistake preventable suffering for normal life”. In a sense, as a society, we have likely found ourselves in psychological danger as preventable disasters are ceasing to provoke actions and have increasingly become seasonal expectations. From an Industrial and Organisational behavioural psychology perspective, when repeated failures produce repeated disasters, people gradually stop asking “How do we prevent this?’ and begin to ask, ‘How do we Survive this?’. Have we yielded to the Psychology of Normalisation – ‘the silent acceptance of the unacceptable ’?

Every rainy season, we express outrage, organise relief efforts, assign blame, and eventually move on and wait until the next flood reminds us that very little has changed. Like a pendulum, the conversation often swings between two extremes. One side blames poor sanitation habits and indiscriminate waste disposal. The other points fingers at government agencies for weak planning, poor enforcement of regulations, and inadequate drainage infrastructure.

Both perspectives may be valid. Yet, from a psychological standpoint, they are incomplete. Flooding in Ghana is not merely an engineering failure. It is fundamentally a behavioural and organisational problem. Let me succinctly highlight five key perspectives on the menace of Ghana’s annualised flooding problem and offer some psychological prescriptions.

1. Beyond Infrastructure: The Human Factor

Roads, drains, and culverts do not fail on their own. Institutions do not become ineffective overnight. Communities do not suddenly develop poor sanitation habits. Behind every blocked drain is a human decision. Behind every unauthorised structure is an institutional decision or the absence of one. Behind every ignored warning, delayed response, or weak enforcement lies a behavioural pattern that has become normalised.

In psychology, we often reiterate that behaviour does not occur in isolation. It is shaped by incentives, leadership, social norms, accountability systems, and organisational culture.

If we only rebuild drains without rebuilding behaviour, we will continue rebuilding after every flood.

• The Psychology of Normalised Deviance

One concept that helps explain Ghana’s flooding crisis is what I will describe as “normalised deviance”. This phenomenon occurs when unacceptable practices gradually become accepted because they happen repeatedly without immediate consequences. Let me highlight four examples of these normalised deviances in Ghana.

1. Throwing refuse into gutters becomes “normal.”
2. Building on waterways becomes “normal.”
3. Powerful (I didn’t say political) interference in enforcement becomes “normal.”
4. Ignoring environmental regulations becomes “normal.”

With these “abnormal normals”, all we expect is one heavy rainfall to expose the cumulative consequences. When organisations repeatedly tolerate small violations, those violations become institutional culture rather than isolated misconduct. The floods we experience thus simply become the final visible outcome.

• Institutions Behave Like People

Industrial and Organisational Psychology reminds us that organisations develop personalities. Some organisations cultivate accountability. Others cultivate excuses. Some reward initiative. Others reward silence. Some encourage proactive problem-solving.

Others become trapped in bureaucratic routines where everyone assumes someone else is responsible. This phenomenon, known in psychology as the diffusion of responsibility, weakens organisational effectiveness. Every office holder within the oversight of established communities has a mandate, yet no one feels fully accountable for outcomes. For instance, between, say, Regional, Metropolitan, Municipal and District leadership, who should have acted and who should be held responsible? This sense of diffusion of responsibility in a crescendo manner leads to a sense of attachment or detachment and invariably affects resignation culture, an established statement of “I have failed as a leader”.

The culminating result is predictable fragmented action, delayed decisions, and reactive crisis management instead of preventive structured governance.

• Leadership Shapes Public Behaviour

Citizens often mirror what institutions consistently demonstrate. When regulations are selectively and weakly enforced, public compliance declines. When sanitation campaigns disappear after media attention fades, environmental responsibility becomes seasonal rather than habitual. When influential individuals openly violate planning laws without consequences, the public learns an unintended lesson of “Rules are negotiable. Behaviour is contagious”. Unfortunately, institutional inconsistencies in addressing a challenge have led to floods taking the lives and livelihoods of many. I dare say that empowered leaders who fail to act in synchronisation with their mandate influence public conduct not only through speeches but through the behaviours they reward, tolerate, or ignore.

• Why Awareness Campaigns Alone Are Not Enough

For decades, Ghana has invested heavily in public education on sanitation.

As a populace, we generally know that littering is wrong. We know drains should remain clear and fully understand the dangers of flooding. From my psychological lens, knowledge is rarely the problem. Behaviour is the culprit here. My appreciation of Social Psychology and other Behavioural Sciences has consistently demonstrated that awareness alone seldom changes conduct. People change when environments make desirable behaviours easier, undesirable behaviours more costly, and accountability more consistent. This means that sustainable flood prevention requires behavioural systems and not merely behavioural messages.

An Integrated Prescription: Psychology Meets Urban Management

From both an Industrial and Organisational Psychology and Urban Management perspective, Ghana’s flooding challenge demands a shift from emergency response to systemic urban resilience. Flood prevention should no longer be viewed solely as an engineering responsibility but as an issue of governance, institutional behaviour, urban planning, and citizen engagement. At this point, I would like to offer eight (8) integrated prescriptions on how Ghana needs to approach flooding as a systems challenge rather than a seasonal emergency. Readers should permit me to start with the last but important point of the 8 perspectives.

1. Ghana must place psychologists and behavioural scientists at the centre of national flood prevention efforts. For decades, we have invested heavily in drains, dredging, desilting, legislation, public education campaigns, and emergency response, yet behavioural patterns and institutional cultures remain largely unchanged. This is because infrastructure can reshape landscapes, but only behavioural science can sustainably reshape human conduct. If Ghana is serious about breaking the cycle of preventable flooding, it must design evidence-based national behaviour change interventions that address how citizens, institutions, leaders, and communities think, decide, comply, and act. Lasting flood resilience will be achieved not only through better engineering, but through better behavioural engineering. This foremost argument then dovetails into my second prescription.
2. Second, I advocate adopting behavioural science as a planning tool. Sustainable cities are built not only through physical infrastructure but also through human behaviour. Urban policies should incorporate behavioural insights that encourage proper waste disposal, promote community stewardship of public spaces, improve compliance with environmental regulations, and foster collective ownership of neighbourhood environments. Behavioural change should be designed into urban systems rather than treated as an afterthought.
3. Third, we need to strengthen urban governance through coordinated institutions. Flood management requires seamless collaboration among agencies responsible for spatial planning, drainage infrastructure, sanitation, environmental protection, disaster management, transport, and local governance. Too often, these institutions operate in silos with overlapping mandates and fragmented accountability. Urban resilience requires integrated planning, shared performance targets, and coordinated decision-making across all levels of government.
4. Fourth, there is a need to enforce spatial planning with integrity and consistency. Many flood-prone communities are the result of decades of weak development control, unauthorised construction on waterways, and political interference in planning enforcement. Urban planning regulations must be applied fairly and consistently, irrespective of social status or political influence. Predictable enforcement fosters public confidence and strengthens compliance with planning laws.
5. Fifth, we must institutionalise risk-informed urban development. Every new housing estate, commercial development, road project, or infrastructure investment should undergo comprehensive flood-risk and climate-resilience assessments. Urban expansion must be guided by scientific evidence, hydrological data, environmental psychology and impact assessments, and long-term land-use planning rather than short-term commercial or political interests.
6. Sixth, there is a need to build resilient local communities. Flood resilience begins at the community level. Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies should strengthen partnerships with resident associations, traditional authorities, civil society organisations, and local businesses to establish community-based flood preparedness programmes, early warning systems, and regular environmental stewardship initiatives. Communities that participate in planning are more likely to protect and sustain public infrastructure.
7. Seventh, we must develop performance-driven public institutions. Institutions responsible for flood prevention should be evaluated not only on the activities they undertake but also on measurable outcomes such as reductions in flood risk, improved drainage maintenance, compliance with planning regulations, and community satisfaction. Organisational cultures must reward prevention, innovation, collaboration, and accountability rather than reactive crisis management.
8. Finally, embrace systems thinking in national urban development. Floods are rarely caused by a single failure. They emerge from interconnected weaknesses in planning, governance, infrastructure, environmental management, institutional coordination, leadership, and public behaviour. Addressing one component while neglecting the others merely transfers the problem rather than solving it. Sustainable urban resilience, therefore, requires integrated policies that recognise cities as complex social, environmental, and organisational systems.

Conclusion: Towards a National Behaviour Change Agenda

Ghana’s flood crisis is not only an engineering and environmental challenge; it is equally a behavioural and institutional one. While investments in drains, dredging, and flood-control infrastructure remain necessary, sustainable solutions will require transforming the attitudes, decisions, and practices of both public officials and citizens. Until we address the psychological and organisational roots of flooding alongside its physical causes, each rainy season will continue to expose weaknesses in our planning systems, institutions, leadership, and collective behaviour.

Ultimately, Ghana’s most valuable investment in flood prevention is not simply larger drains or stronger flood barriers, but the deliberate creation of accountable institutions, evidence-based planning systems, and responsible communities. A resilient city is not one that merely survives heavy rainfall; it is one whose leaders, institutions, and citizens work together to prevent predictable disasters before they occur. In such a system, public-sector cultures reward prevention, compliance, and accountability rather than recurring crisis response.

For decades, we have relied on excavators, dredging exercises, and emergency interventions, yet the floods persist. If we accept that a significant part of the problem is behavioural - from empowered decision-makers to the wider citizenry - then it is time to complement engineering solutions with behavioural ones. Psychologists, Urban Practitioners, and other behavioural experts should be engaged to design and drive the lasting changes in attitudes, systems, and institutional cultures needed to confront this environmental and social crisis.

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By Prof Collins Badu Agyemang

Consultant Psychologist and Senior Faculty

Department of Psychology and Centre for Urban Management Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.

cbagyemang@ug.edu.gh