Achieving food security in the face of accelerating food demand, competition for depleting resources, and the failing ability of the environment to buffer increasing anthropogenic impacts is globally accepted as the foremost challenge of the present time. Without doubt, climate change is one among a set of interconnected trends and risks facing agriculture and food systems, especially in the rural settings of developing countries. The Northern Ghana region is characterised by a high incidence of poverty and food insecurity among rural households, due to, among others, biophysical factors such as the unimodal nature of rainfall and the socio-economic, institutional, and political factors that affect the livelihoods of the people. The principal question is, what are the intersections between climate vulnerability and food insecurity at the rural household level? In answering this and other questions, the study draws on the sustainable livelihoods framework and other theories to ascertain the state of climate vulnerability and the food security status of rural households, and how local institutions can enhance their adaptive and coping capacity through effective implementation of adaptation policies in Northern Ghana.
The study was positioned within a combined strategy of concurrent triangulation and concurrent nested strategy, a mixed methodology approach that utilized interviews, focus group discussions, cross-sectional surveys (363 households) and secondary data. In assessing rainfall anomaly, the Standard Precipitation Index was computed using Rain-Based Drought Indices Tool (RDIT) Software. Further, while the composite indicator approach was used to compute the extent of vulnerability, smart PLS-SEM was used to estimate the extent to which food availability, accessibility, utilization, stability and other resilient factors influence rural household food security.  
The Standard Precipitation Index showed that there has been high climate variability leading to series of droughts in Northern Ghana over the past 30 years. As hypothesised, the estimation of the vulnerability indices showed that climate change contributes significantly to vulnerability in Northern Ghana due to high level of exposure as opposed the adaptive capacity. The overall livelihood effect index (0.512) was greater than the overall livelihood vulnerability index (0.495), leading to a percentage change of 3.43. This suggests that in the study region, households’ level is affected by 3.34 percent more than if we consider the livelihood in the sight of the entire region. The overall level of vulnerability due to climate change was 0.052 and this differs across the four sampled municipalities. The level of vulnerability is reflected in the coping behaviour as households engage in food-acquiring activities and often change their eating behaviour to combat food insecurity.
Estimating rural food security as an unobservable variable, the results of the smart PLS showed that there are diverse biophysical, socio-economic, political, and institutional factors that intersect to influence food security, directly and indirectly. Local institutions, including microfinance, were found to have a significant role in improving livelihoods and food security at both the community and the household level. Based on the findings, it is recommended that relevant stakeholders should support community economic empowerment programmes and transform rural policy environments.