Factors that influence bond markets development in Ghana

The various financial crises all over the globe underscore the need for economies to have vibrant bond markets to augment their financial portfolios.  Among other benefits, this will enable them to support rapid and sustained infrastructural development, which in turn will lead to swift economic growth.  The small size of the Ghanaian bond market, the accompanying huge infrastructural challenges, the overdependence on external debt and Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), the lopsided empirical evidence, which is concentrated on western  and Asian economies coupled with mixed findings in related studies call for the need to examine the factors that promote  the  country‘s bond market  development. This  study  therefore  examines  the influence  of  bond market  determinants  on  the development of the bond market  in Ghana. Data was collected from secondary sources covering a period from 1980 to 2015. The Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is employed as technique of data analysis.  The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) stationarity test, the Johansen Co-integration test and other tests are carried out to ensure the robustness of the results.  The findings of the study reveal that bank size, external debt, money supply and size of the economy are significant determinants of corporate bond market development in Ghana.  Also, level of economic development, budget deficit and bank size are significant determinants of government bond market size in Ghana.  However, bank size, money supply and external debt are seen to be the most important and significant drivers of total bond market size in Ghan

The Effect of IFRS Adoption on Foreign Direct Investment in Africa

Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is supposed to help enhance comparability of financial statement, improve the quality of financial reporting and accounting information of businesses in a country. This is expected to help improve Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the adopting countries. This study examined the effect of IFRS adoption on FDI inflows in Africa. Unlike previous studies that sample both adopting and non-adopting countries, this study sampled only Africa countries that have adopted IFRS to determine whether the adoption has improved FDI inflows. To achieve this objective, 20 African countries that have adopted IFRS were sampled covering a period 1980 to 2015. Data was sourced from The World Bank financial and Economic Data. Control variables such as GDP growth, openness of the economy, government debt and population growth were included in the model. The correlation and regression analysis showed that IFRS adoption has a positive and significant influence on FDI inflows in Africa. On the other hand, open economy, government debt and population growth had a positive and significant association with FDI. Overall, the results show that African countries that want to improve FDI inflows must improve the quality of their reporting environment by adopting IFRS

Understanding the Nexus between Climate Change, the Shift in Land Use toward Cashew Production and Rural Food Security in Ghana; the Experiences of Farmers in the Transition Zone of Ghana

This study summarises the findings from a study investigating rural small-holding farmers’ experiences on the shift from food crop to cashew in the forest/savanna transitional agro-ecological zone of Ghana and its impact on rural food security. Using a mix method approach, the study sampled the views of 400 farmers from 9 farming communities in the Wenchi Municipality of Ghana via questionnaire and semi-structured interview and collated statistical data on crop production to trace the nexus between climate change, agrarian land-use decisions and food security. The study found evidence of increasing shift from food crop to cashew production. This was evidenced by increasing cashew cultivation and cashew output and decreasing total land acreage for food crops and increasing food insecurity of farmers. The findings revealed that about 71% of farmers had expanded their cashew farms and another 41.0% have turned their food crops’ lands to cashew production. Besides cashew production, (57.0%) has overtaken the traditional food crop -maize (25.5%) production in terms of output.  Instructively, the study found that the main motivation for the shift from food crop to cashew production is not only to maximise income in bulk, but also climate change adaptability issues. The study found that the cashew crop is resilient in adapting to the changing climate and less prone to pests’ invasion compared to maize in the study District. The study found that food security among rural folks had been seriously compromised by the conversion of farmlands from food crop to cashew farming. Although, the study found that female farmers have higher consciousness to food security yet less motivated to shift from food crop to cashew crop production compared to men.  Worryingly, females are the hardest hit group because of their low ownership of or access to farmlands and low voices of women in farmland use decision making in a men-dominant rural extended family setting of the study District. The study concludes that climate change adaptability concern has introduced a new set of risks including crop failure due to changing rainfall pattern and increasing incidence of pest invasions forcing the rural folks to compromise innovative indigenous farming focus and practices that have helped them to navigate extreme food poverty. This study, therefore, argues for improved food crop seeds tailored to the specific climatic context and innovative farming practices that beef-up small-holding farmers’ capacity to navigate climate change to continually produce food crop to ensure rural food security and sustainability

Multi-objective optimisation of building design variables and its impact on office building performance: a case for Ghana

Multi-objective optimisation of building design variables is an appropriate and robust approach in assessing office building performance. Conversely, in developing country contexts like Ghana there is lack of credible building design variables from scientific and technical journals. The main research problem was low building performance assessment by building professionals in Ghana resulting in high cooling energy utilization and indoor environmental discomfort within the commercial building sector. Overall, the aim of the research was to use cost effective low energy technologies to optimize the building design variables to achieve recommended good practice for energy utilization of service equipment and indoor environmental performance in office building. Research questions addressed in this research included the following: 1. How does local building professionals’ practices impact on design variables used in performance assessment, and are occupants’ comfortable as well as satisfied with building performance in Ghana? 2. Are the building fabrics used in Ghana suitable for enhancing building performance? 3. How can the building performance design variables from survey questionnaires and experimental assessments be optimized? 4. Are the existing economic benefit assessment tools adequate for fast accurate decision making in comparing recommended good practice for cooling load by CIBSE Guides in hot-humid climate? The following creative and novel methodologies were used for this research: 1. Survey questionnaires using Bristol Online Survey Tool for the administration and acquisition of responses from participants. 2. Experimental assessment of selected fabrics from Ghana and creative parametric fabrics using both TCi Thermal Analyser and AutoPore IV mercury intrusion Porosimeter. 3. Computer simulations for optimised design variables using ESDL Tas. Finally, Design of creative comparator decision making tool for economic benefit assessment of the optimised computer simulations design variables. The selected significant findings from the application of the creative and novel methodologies in addition to the corresponding implications are summarised as follows: 1. An average of 16% of all building professionals do assess design variables associated with its practices with about 60% building professionals satisfied with Ghana building regulations, on the contrary, highly recommended for an improvement on the regulations. 2. Experimental assessment of representative selected Ghana building fabrics and enhanced parametric studies meets the thermo-physical properties outlined in the CIBSE Guide standards, with the range of thermal conductivity being 0.2 to 0.7W/m2K. 3. From the creative computer simulation outcomes, the cooling load of the base case is about 10 times more than the recommended good cooling load practice outlined in CIBSE Guides. The optimised computer simulation single wall layer building design model was achieved using optimum low transmittance building fabrics, optimum internal conditions and low chilled beam technology. 4. From the economic benefit assessment, an increasing trend of inverse correlation between difference in modification cost with cooling load reduction was observed. That is, for reduction in cooling load, there is an increasing cost in modification. For example, for reduction of cooling load of 40% from Case 1 to Case 3, there is a corresponding increase in modification cost of 79.4%. 5. Representative office occupants are generally satisfied and comfortable with building performance in Ghana. The above findings have compounded extreme implications on the local building professionals’ practices, leading to subsequently high cooling load, hence the rising energy utilization of service equipment in non-residential buildings. Finally, the overall aim of achieving the recommended good practice for service equipment energy utilization in commercial buildings was not accomplished for the cooling load. This is due to the difference in cooling load calendar used by CIBSE Guide and hot-humid climate, Ghana. In conclusion, an optimised low cost computer simulation of single wall layer envelope design, with cooling load of 120 kW/m2 for floor area and acceptable indoor environmental quality has been achieved in this research. It is strongly, recommended that, performance assessment should be incorporated into building permit issuing process using the designed creative feedback chart designed in this research

Potential of Bioenergy in Rural Ghana

Crop residues are common in rural Ghana due to the predominant role agriculture plays in livelihood activities in these communities. In this paper we investigate the prospects of exploiting agricultural crop residues for rural development in Ghana through bioenergy schemes. A theoretical energy potential of 623.84 PJ per year, which is equivalent to 19,781 MW was estimated using crop production data from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and residue-to-product ratios. Ghana has a total installed generation capacity of 4577 MW which is four times less the energy potential of crop residues in the country. Cocoa pod husks were identified as important biomass resources for energy generation as they are currently wasted. To further assess the energy potential of cocoa pod husks, different cocoa pod husks samples were collected across the six cocoa growing regions in Ghana and thermo-chemically characterised using proximate and ultimate analysis. The low levels of nitrogen and sulphur observed, together with the high heating value, suggest that cocoa pod husks and for that matter crop residues are eco-friendly feedstock that can be used to power rural communities in Ghana

Multi-objective optimisation of building design variables and its impact on office building performance: a case for Ghana

Multi-objective optimisation of building design variables is an appropriate and robust approach in assessing office building performance. Conversely, in developing country contexts like Ghana there is lack of credible building design variables from scientific and technical journals. The main research problem was low building performance assessment by building professionals in Ghana resulting in high cooling energy utilization and indoor environmental discomfort within the commercial building sector. Overall, the aim of the research was to use cost effective low energy technologies to optimize the building design variables to achieve recommended good practice for energy utilization of service equipment and indoor environmental performance in office building. Research questions addressed in this research included the following: 1. How does local building professionals’ practices impact on design variables used in performance assessment, and are occupants’ comfortable as well as satisfied with building performance in Ghana? 2. Are the building fabrics used in Ghana suitable for enhancing building performance? 3. How can the building performance design variables from survey questionnaires and experimental assessments be optimized? 4. Are the existing economic benefit assessment tools adequate for fast accurate decision making in comparing recommended good practice for cooling load by CIBSE Guides in hot-humid climate? The following creative and novel methodologies were used for this research: 1. Survey questionnaires using Bristol Online Survey Tool for the administration and acquisition of responses from participants. 2. Experimental assessment of selected fabrics from Ghana and creative parametric fabrics using both TCi Thermal Analyser and AutoPore IV mercury intrusion Porosimeter. 3. Computer simulations for optimised design variables using ESDL Tas. Finally, Design of creative comparator decision making tool for economic benefit assessment of the optimised computer simulations design variables. The selected significant findings from the application of the creative and novel methodologies in addition to the corresponding implications are summarised as follows: 1. An average of 16% of all building professionals do assess design variables associated with its practices with about 60% building professionals satisfied with Ghana building regulations, on the contrary, highly recommended for an improvement on the regulations. 2. Experimental assessment of representative selected Ghana building fabrics and enhanced parametric studies meets the thermo-physical properties outlined in the CIBSE Guide standards, with the range of thermal conductivity being 0.2 to 0.7W/m2K. 3. From the creative computer simulation outcomes, the cooling load of the base case is about 10 times more than the recommended good cooling load practice outlined in CIBSE Guides. The optimised computer simulation single wall layer building design model was achieved using optimum low transmittance building fabrics, optimum internal conditions and low chilled beam technology. 4. From the economic benefit assessment, an increasing trend of inverse correlation between difference in modification cost with cooling load reduction was observed. That is, for reduction in cooling load, there is an increasing cost in modification. For example, for reduction of cooling load of 40% from Case 1 to Case 3, there is a corresponding increase in modification cost of 79.4%. 5. Representative office occupants are generally satisfied and comfortable with building performance in Ghana. The above findings have compounded extreme implications on the local building professionals’ practices, leading to subsequently high cooling load, hence the rising energy utilization of service equipment in non-residential buildings. Finally, the overall aim of achieving the recommended good practice for service equipment energy utilization in commercial buildings was not accomplished for the cooling load. This is due to the difference in cooling load calendar used by CIBSE Guide and hot-humid climate, Ghana. In conclusion, an optimised low cost computer simulation of single wall layer envelope design, with cooling load of 120 kW/m2 for floor area and acceptable indoor environmental quality has been achieved in this research. It is strongly, recommended that, performance assessment should be incorporated into building permit issuing process using the designed creative feedback chart designed in this research

Recognizing childhood illnesses and their traditional explanations: exploring options for care-seeking interventions in the context of the IMCI strategy in rural Ghana.

OBJECTIVES: Interventions that promote appropriate care-seeking for severely ill children have the potential to substantially reduce child mortality in developing countries, but little is known about the best approach to address the issue. This paper explores the relative importance of illness recognition as a barrier to care-seeking and the feasibility and potential impact of improving recognition. METHODS: The study combined qualitative and quantitative methods including in-depth interviews exploring the local illness classification system, a Rapid Anthropological Assessment (RAA) recording narratives of recent episodes of child illness and a survey designed to test the hypotheses that emerged from the RAA. RESULTS: Several danger symptoms were not recognized by caregivers. There were recognition problems which may not be feasibly addressed in an intervention. Other significant care-seeking barriers included classifying certain illnesses as 'not-for-hospital' and untreatable by modern medicine; problems of access; and frequent use of traditional medicines. CONCLUSION: The recognition component of any care-seeking intervention should identify the type of recognition problem present in the community. Many of the care-seeking barriers identified in the study revolved around the local illness classification system, which should be explored and built on as part of any care-seeking intervention

Acceptability of rapid diagnostic test-based management of Malaria among caregivers of under-five children in rural Ghana.

INTRODUCTION: WHO now recommends test-based management of malaria (TBMM) across all age-groups. This implies artemisinin-based combination treatment (ACT) should be restricted to rapid diagnostic test (RDT)-positive cases. This is a departure from what caregivers in rural communities have been used to for many years. METHODS: We conducted a survey among caregivers living close to 32 health centres in six districts in rural Ghana and used logistic regression to explore factors likely to influence caregiver acceptability of RDT based case management and concern about the denial of ACT on account of negative RDT results. Focus group discussions were conducted to explain the quantitative findings and to elicit further factors. RESULTS: A total of 3047 caregivers were interviewed. Nearly all (98%) reported a preference for TBMM over presumptive treatment. Caregivers who preferred TBMM were less likely to be concerned about the denial of ACT to their test-negative children (O.R. 0.57, 95%C.I. 0.33-0.98). Compared with caregivers who had never secured national health insurance cover, caregivers who had valid (adjusted O.R. 1.30, 95% CI 1.07-1.61) or expired (adjusted O.R. 1.38, 95% CI 1.12-1.73) insurance cover were more likely to be concerned about the denial of ACT to their RDT-negative children. Major factors that promote TBMM acceptability include the perception that a blood test at health centre level represents improvement in the quality of care, leads to improvement in treatment outcomes, and offers opportunity for better communication between health workers and caregivers. Acceptability is also enhanced by engaging caregivers in the procedures of the test. Apprehensions about negative health worker attitude could however undermine acceptance. CONCLUSION: Test (RDT)-based management of malaria in under-five children is likely to be acceptable to caregivers in rural Ghana. The quality of caregiver-health worker interaction needs to be improved if acceptability is to be sustained

Factors that affect the adoption and maintenance of weekly vitamin A supplementation among women in Ghana.

OBJECTIVE: To identify regimen, individual, community and cultural factors that affect adoption and adherence to weekly vitamin A supplementation in Ghana. DESIGN: Fifty semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who would be eligible for vitamin A supplementation, 30 with husbands, and 13 with drug sellers, birth attendants and health workers. Six focus group discussions were also conducted with women. These interviews were followed by a 4-month capsule trial with 60 women. Data from a previously conducted communication channel survey of 332 women were also reviewed. SETTING: The study was conducted in Kintampo District in central Ghana. SUBJECTS: Participants for the semi-structured interviews and focus groups were selected from four villages and the district capital, and women in the capsule trial were selected at random from two villages. RESULTS: Knowledge of vitamins was low and taking 'medicines' for long periods and when healthy is a new concept. In spite of this, long-term supplementation will be accepted if motives are explained, specific questions answered and clear instructions are given. Potential barriers included the idea of 'doctor' medicines as curative, false expectations of the supplement, forgetting to take the supplement, losing the supplement, travelling, lack of motivation, perceived side-effects, concerns that the supplement is really family planning or will make delivery difficult, and concerns about taking the supplement with other 'doctor' or herbal medicine, or when pregnant or breast-feeding, or if childless. CONCLUSION: Successful supplementation programmes require appropriately designed information, education and communication strategies. Designing such strategies requires pre-programme formative research to uncover barriers and facilitators for supplementation

Impact of weather dependent variables on cooling and dehumidification loads of air-conditioned office in warm-humid

Dehumidification in buildings remains a dominant contributor to cooling load in hot-humid climate zone irrespective of the cooling technology used, thus consuming much energy and also contributes to environmental impact through emission of greenhouse gases. Benchmarking and control of energy use in the design and the operation of buildings in developing countries come with much challenges. This paper used ESDL TAS Building Simulation Software to perform dynamic simulation to explore the potential reduction of dehumidification and cooling loads of an air-conditioned office building in the hot-humid climate of Ghana through a parametric study of four weather dependent variables. The combined input variables achieved a reduction of 64.28% and 58.12% in dehumidification and cooling loads respectively of the base case model. Tuning the range of the thermostat temperature and relative humidity settings demonstrated significant savings. Reducing infiltration rate arising from all leakages to a practically feasible minimum, as well as ventilation gain demonstrated appreciable savings in energy use. Tuning of vapour diffusion factor of building materials, however, did not have significant effect on the loads. The outcome of the study is expected to inform the design and operation of air-conditioned office buildings in developing countries of hot-humid climate conditions to achieve optimum energy consumption for cooling of spaces