SigesaaNorthern Ghana

Climate · Health · Livelihoods

The rain decides the year. We help families see it coming.

Sigesaa turns climate and satellite science into early warning and practical guidance for farming families in northern Ghana — so a late rain, a flood or a heat spell is something you prepare for, not something that happens to you.

Work with us See what we do

One rainy season. Everything depends on it.

Southern Ghana gets two rainy seasons. The north gets one — and when its onset shifts or its peak turns to flood, there is no second chance that year.

Dry season — water scarce, wells low Rains — planting depends on onset Peak flood risk — including dam spill

Why northern Ghana

The most climate-exposed part of the country, with the least room to absorb a shock.

Livelihoods here rest almost entirely on one rainy season. When it arrives late, stops early, or turns to flood, the loss lands on households that have no buffer — and it lands hardest on women.

54%of people in northern Ghana live below the poverty line.
6%of arable land is irrigated — the rest waits for rain.
1rainy season a year. No second chance if it fails.
Too much, then too little. The north's problem is not only flood. It is the same year swinging from washed-out farmland in August to dry wells and idle land by February. Both ends of that swing are climate-information problems — and both are what we work on.

What we do

Two things, done properly.

Focus area 01

Climate-and-health early warning

We use climate, weather and satellite data to give communities and health services warning of floods, extreme heat and the disease risks that follow — in time to act.

  • Flood and standing-water mapping from satellite
  • Heat and disease-risk alerts for health workers
  • Warnings written for the people who must act on them
Focus area 02

Climate services for farming and water security

We translate rainfall, seasonal and drought forecasts into guidance a farming household can actually use — when to plant, what a late onset means, how to plan for the dry months.

  • Rainfall onset and cessation advice for planting
  • Seasonal and dry-season water outlooks
  • Practical support for women's farming and income groups

How we work

Science that ends in someone's hands.

A forecast that never reaches a farmer or a clinic has done nothing. Our work is only finished when the information has been used.

Read the data

We do the science ourselves

Satellite and climate data, processed and validated by people who do this professionally — not repackaged from someone else's bulletin.

Translate it

Into a decision, not a chart

Plant now or wait. Move the animals. Check on the elderly this week. Treat this water. Plain guidance, in the languages people use.

Deliver it

Through people communities trust

Women's groups, farmer groups, community health volunteers and district services — the channels that already exist and already work.

Check it

Ask whether it helped

We go back and ask if the warning arrived in time, if it made sense, and what we got wrong. Then we fix it.

Who we are

Rooted in the north. Fluent in the science.

Plenty of organisations work in northern Ghana. Very few can read a satellite image, build a forecast and stand in the community it is meant to serve. Sigesaa was founded in Bolgatanga, in the Upper East, to be both.

"I grew up with this rainfall. I now study it for a living. Sigesaa exists to close the distance between what the data already shows and what a family in the north gets told in time to act on."

Dr Winifred Ayinpogbilla Atiah · Founder