Although a great deal of research work has been done by social scientists on walkability and playability, the focus to a large extent has been on the global north. Research work on the urban built environment and children’s play has not engaged Africa in general and Ghana in particular. More importantly, there is limited evidence of policies in terms of community-based practices and governmental policies and programmes for the promotion of play. The limited effort in promoting physical activities have to a large extent focused on walkability, yet evidence to date indicates that walking only constitutes a small proportion of the physical activities of children. This is against the backdrop of growing urbanization and the increasing reported incidence of sedentary lifestyles, less physical activity and obesity among children and the youth. Our main objective in this paper is to contribute to the literature on Ghana, and by extension Sub-Saharan Africa, by examining the extent to which playability features in city and national policies and strategies in urban Ghana. We conclude that there is dearth of public policies on children’s play, with the situation in communities compounded by weak city government capacity to plan, implement and enforce development control to protect open spaces for children's play and recreational purposes. The paper recommends a change in policy and practice on creating spaces in urban built-environments for children’s play in urban Ghana.

尽管社会科学家在步行性和可玩性方面做了大量的研究工作，但很大程度上关注的焦点都集中在北半球。关于城市建筑环境和儿童游乐的研究工作尚未涉及整个非洲，特别是加纳。更重要的是，关于基于社区的实践以及促进玩耍的政府政策和计划方面的政策证据有限。促进体育活动的有限努力在很大程度上集中在步行性上，但迄今为止的证据表明步行仅占儿童体育活动的一小部分。这是在城市化不断发展、儿童和青少年久坐生活方式、体力活动减少和肥胖现象日益增多的背景下发生的。我们本文的主要目标是通过研究加纳城市的城市和国家政策和战略中的可玩性特征的程度，为有关加纳以及撒哈拉以南非洲地区的文献做出贡献。我们的结论是，缺乏有关儿童游乐的公共政策，而城市政府在规划、实施和执行发展控制以保护儿童游乐和休闲目的的开放空间方面的能力薄弱，使社区的情况变得更加复杂。该文件建议改变政策和做法，在加纳城市的城市建筑环境中创造儿童玩耍的空间。