Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Climate Change Vulnerability And Perceived Resilience Among Smallholder Farmers In The Upper West Region Of Ghana, Evans Sumabe Batung

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Globally, observed climate change has become a major barrier to agricultural productivity. At the same time, present and projected climate impacts are disproportionately affecting smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where smallholder agriculture constitutes the predominant source of livelihood. Due to the vast agricultural potential of SSA, climate change resilience has been central in several multi-level deliberations over the past few decades. However, existing policies aimed at improving the effects of climate change on food security have overwhelmingly focused on the climatic dimensions of vulnerability, resulting in a lack of knowledge of the role non-climatic factors also play in shaping …

Explaining The Origins And Evolution Of The Global Financial Inclusion Agenda, Tyler Girard

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The idea of “financial inclusion,” understood as the access to and use of a broad range of retail financial services (including bank accounts, payment services, credit, and insurance) by everyone in society, emerged as a global priority in the late 2000s. Financial inclusion now features prominently in global economic governance and the activities of disparate international organizations, states, businesses, and civil society organizations. This dissertation asks: what explains the origins and evolution of the global financial inclusion agenda? Existing scholarship often emphasizes the interests and power of Western states and businesses, asymmetric debt and power relations, and the centrality of …

Impacts Of Climate Change On Food Security And Smallholder Livelihoods In Northern Ghana, Kamaldeen Mohammed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Climate change and food insecurity threaten the livelihoods of smallholder communities in the Global South. In the Ghanaian context, climate change and food insecurity are particularly crucial challenges in the northern regions, where most people are engaged in diverse activities in the agricultural sector. Despite tremendous efforts to curtail food insecurity and climate change vulnerability of smallholder households in northern Ghana, food insecurity and climate change remain pervasive in the region, indicating that smallholder adaptive capacities and resilience to the impacts of climate change are not commensurate with the severity of the problems. Emerging literature has indicated that livelihood diversification …

Working Within Constraints: Examining The Effectiveness Of Local Network Governance In Addressing Complex Social Challenges, Merlin R. Chatwin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Despite sustained efforts, the pervasiveness of complex social challenges continues to confound governments at all scales. While the local manifestations are unique to socio-political and geographic context, issues such as homelessness, poverty, and food insecurity are global in nature. The centrality of local government in identifying and addressing complex social challenges is at the forefront of global agendas like the New Urban Agenda (NUA) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is broad agreement on the importance of local governments, yet, how to equip them with the resources and autonomy required to meet complex social challenges remains contentious. Indeed, governance …

Examining Climate Change-Health Nexus In Ghana, Lucia Kafui Hussey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Climate change is one of today’s most pressing global issues with its physical, biological and social impacts widely recognized. One area of concern is its potential health consequences. The postulated health effects from climate change are far-reaching that climate change induced health risks are signaled as the most pressing problems to public health in the 21^st century. Although developing countries such as Ghana had been suggested as a vulnerable hotspot for the health consequences of climate change, there is a paucity of empirical research on climate change and its health linkages in the country.

The purpose of this dissertation …

Youth Engagement In Artisanal And Small-Scale Mining In The Upper East Region Of Ghana, Lydia Osei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Youth unemployment remains a prevalent problem in sub-Saharan Africa and many of its governments are grappling with it. Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), however, is gaining prominence in generating employment avenues for the youth. In fact, ASM provides jobs for thousands of youth and is considered to be ameliorating hardships in many rural areas. ASM has therefore been broadly acknowledged as a ‘poverty-driven’ activity. Given the sector’s contribution (both legally and illegally) to rural livelihoods, governments and development partners interested in poverty reduction are uncertain of how to deal with the growth of ASM. Policymakers and development partners seem confused …

A Gendered Perspective On Migrant Women Farmers’ Lived Experiences In The Brong-Ahafo Region Of Ghana, Jemima Nomunume Baada

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examined the lived experiences of migrant women in rural areas of the Brong-Ahafo Region (BAR) of Ghana. Notwithstanding the depth of research on internal migrations in Ghana, little is known about women who have migrated from the Upper West Region to rural settlements in BAR to farm. Using 30 in-depth interviews, 5 focus group discussions and 10 key informant interviews, the study investigated migrant women’s productive and reproductive challenges, how they navigate these limitations, and the current state of livelihood improvement interventions. The findings revealed that migrant women’s livelihoods may not have improved as they had expected pre-migration, …

Community-Based Health Planning And Services And Women’S Access To Health Care In The Upper West Region Of Ghana, Joseph Asumah Braimah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) policy was implemented in 1999 to improve access to Primary Health Care (PHC) services in Ghana, particularly in rural and remote areas as part of global efforts to achieve universal health coverage. Despite this initiative, health care access in the Upper West Region (UWR) remains poor with wide gender disparities. Yet, little is known about the impact of CHPS on women’s access to health care services in the UWR of Ghana. This study therefore examines the role of CHPS on women’s access to health care services in the region. Data were obtained from …

Environment And Health Perceptions In The Vicinty Of Surface Mining Concessions In The Upper West Region Of Ghana, Roger Antabe

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The emergence of a gold mining industry and the influx of Artisanal Small Scale Mining following recent discoveries of gold deposits in Northern Ghana have posed new socio-cultural, economic, environment and health challenges for residents in a dry savannah zone that is already facing negative consequences of environmental change. Yet, knowledge of the impact of this emerging industry on the health of local population, and the extent to which it makes such a stressed environment more uninhabitable, has been lacking. In addition, studies elsewhere, mostly in the southern part of the country where mining predominates, have largely concentrated on assessing …

"My Friends, They Are People To Rely On": The Social Foundation Of Business In Ghana, Patrick D. Shulist

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The management and entrepreneurship literatures increasingly engage in poverty alleviation research in the developing world. However, there is a marked tendency to overlook how the Western World, from where most theory comes, differs from the developing world. Such a fallacy has potential deleterious effects on the research itself, but more importantly on the practical applications of that research.

With this in mind, my dissertation uses an inductive qualitative methodology to explore the nature of self-employment in the developing world as it is; that is, not coloured by theoretical priors. In doing this, I lay the groundwork for understanding the …

Relationship Between Household Food Insecurity And Health In The Upper West Region Of Ghana, Kilian Nasung Atuoye

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Although the importance of food as a social determinant of health has been elucidated, it remains underexplored in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where a significant population is faced with challenges of accessing food, largely from a combination many factors including low economic power, poor livelihoods, political instability and policy gaps. Despite tremendous improvement on food security in Ghana, the northern part of the country including the Upper West Region still experience disproportionally high levels of deprivation and food insecurity. Research has tends to explain the dynamics and complexities of food insecurity in the Region, yet variation of the incidence of food …

Hungry Farmers: A Political Ecology Of Agriculture And Food Security In Northern Ghana, Hanson Nyantakyi-Frimpong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Whilst Ghana has made momentous strides in national food security over the last decade, peasants in the rural north, indeed, those who produce the bulk of the country’s food, are also the hungriest population. This paradox immediately raises profound questions for research in human-environment geography. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate some of these questions, with particular emphasis on why Ghana’s food system is failing precisely those who produce food. The research combines insights from agrarian political economy and political ecology, and is informed by nine months of intensive fieldwork. Three carefully selected case studies uncover the full …

Women's Navigation Of Maternal Health Services In Ghana's Upper West Region In The Context Of The National Health Insurance Scheme, Andrea C. Rishworth

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In 2008 the sub Saharan African country of Ghana implemented a Maternal Exemption Policy (MEP) within its National Health Insurance Scheme. This policy provides coverage for free antenatal, postnatal, and facility delivery to all pregnant women for a one year period. By removing the fees associated with maternal health services, the MEP was intended to reduce maternal mortality and provide equitable health care for pregnant women. While the MEP is generally regarded as beneficial to the women of Ghana, challenges remain, especially in the poor, marginalized and rural communities of the Upper West Region. Given that access to a skilled …

Determinants Of Health Insurance Enrolment In Ghana's Upper West Region, Jenna Dixon

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis aims to explore the determinants of enrolment in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ghana’s Upper West Region (UWR). While studies on the theoretically “pro-poor” NHIS have thus far focused on wealth as driver of enrolment, the high rates of enrolment in the poorest and most deprived region of the country (the UWR) suggest that other factors underpin health insurance acquisition and maintenance. This study uses mixed methods that combine quantitative and qualitative techniques in order to better understand patterned differences between enrolled, never enrolled and dropped out members of the scheme.

Results of a quantitative analysis …