Association between lifestyle and health variables with nutritional status of the elderly in the Northern Region of Ghana

With fertility and mortality steadily declining, a remarkable shift in the world’s population age structure toward older ages is expected in the coming decades. The elderly population is at particular risk of malnutrition. The presence of malnutrition could be the result of, and also lead to, social, medical and other health problems. Currently, Ghana has the highest proportion of persons aged 60 years and above in sub-Saharan Africa and little attention has been given to this segment of the population. A cross-sectional study of 400 (177 males and 223 females) individuals who are 65 years and above was carried out in urban areas in the Northern Region of Ghana to evaluate the nutrition and health situation of the elderly. Socio-demographic and economic data, dietary patterns, state of health, level of physical activity and lifestyle variables were collected using a questionnaire. Anthropometric data (weight and height) were measured using standard procedures. More than half of the participants (56.2%) were married and living with their spouses. These were mostly the males. Most of the participants (93.5%) had no formal education while over half of them (57.2%) relied on family members and friends for their financial needs. Slightly over half (53.2%) of the subjects had fair health status with females experiencing more disease conditions than males. Almost all the respondents were independent in performing all daily activities. Using Body Mass Index (BMI) in kg/m2 as an indicator for nutritional status, 18.0% of the participants were underweight, 60.5% had normal weight and 21.5% were overweight. Alcohol consumption and sight problems were found to have significant negative association with BMI (p=0.007 and p=0.005, respectively). Malnutrition is, therefore, an important public health burden among the elderly in the region and therefore deserves attention. The formulation and implementation of a national policy on the elderly and nutrition education targeting the whole populace is urgently needed in Ghana to ensure healthy aging.Keywords: nutritional status, elderly, health, lifestyle, dietary intake, body mass inde

The Implications of Climate Change on Food Security and Rural Livelihoods: Experiences from Northern Ghana

Climate change has become a developmental issue across the world. This paper examines the implication of climate change on food security and rural livelihoods in northern Ghana. It focuses on the effect of climate change on the principal coordinates of food security and livelihoods of households in northern Ghana. Participant observations and key informant interviews were the main data collection methods employed. The main finding is that communities that hitherto never experienced floods and droughts are now faced with the realities of these natural phenomena and these are adversely affecting food security and household livelihoods. It is recommended that government and its development partners need to adopt a holistic approach to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change in northern Ghana if the MDGs are to be achieved. Key Words: Climate Change, Food Security, Livelihoods, Northern Ghana, Social Safet

Climate and livelihood change in North East Ghana

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Mr. Meteo: Providing climate information for the unconnected

A majority of the world remain unconnected to the World Wide Web due to issues like low literacy and relevant information. This study presents Mr. Meteo, a system that provides weather information via voice calls in local languages to rural farmers in Ghana. The study used an interdisciplinary approach to identify relevant informational needs and socio-economic implications, and early end-user and stakeholder involvement. Mr. Meteo was deployed in Bolgatanga, Ghana and represents a novel design in terms of actual web data access to rural areas. The positive feedback from farmers, and stakeholder’s interest in continuity, shows this approach to be an appropriate method of development and implementation of information systems for rural areas; successful due to end-user and stakeholder involvement, focus on existing technologies, the use of voice technologies to mitigate the problem of illiteracy, and information relevance to end-users. This paper presents the methodology and results of this novel, practical, local-context ICT4D project,that has produced a viable information system for rural communities

Climate change preparedness in West Africa

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Micro Irrigatino-Based Vegetable Farming for Income, Employment and Food Security in West Africa

Dry season smallholder irrigated vegetable production in the arid and semi-arid parts of the West African sub-region has been an important income generating activity and a means of engaging productive labour for many decades. Crop production has often been on less than half an acre per irrigator due to several constraints including low watertable in the case of shallow well irrigators; poorly constructed dams, silting rivers and streams and water lifting constraints in the case of surface water irrigators; and limited market opportunities, among others. The resultant output per person, and thus income generated per worker, has been very low with high risks of unsustainable production. Attempts at "modern" irrigation systems in the sub-region have been largely unsuccessful but some of the micro irrigation systems operated by smallholders seem to be performing satisfactorily. that is an indication that "affordable micro-irrigation for vegetable" (AMIV) systems could be the answer for improving irrigated vegetable production in West Africa

MicroIrrigation- Based Vegetables Farming for Income, Employment and Food Security in West Africa

Dry season smallholder irrigated vegetable production in the arid and semi-arid parts of the West African sub-region has been an important income generating activity and a means of engaging productive labour for many decades. Crop production has often been on less than half an acre per irrigator due to several constraints including low watertable in the case of shallow well irrigators; poorly constructed dams, silting rivers and streams and water lifting constraints in the case of surface water irrigators; and limited market opportunities, among others. The resultant output per person, and thus income generated per worker, has been very low with high risks of unsustainable production. Attempts at “modern” irrigation systems in the sub-region have been largely unsuccessful but some of the micro irrigation systems operated by smallholders seem to be performing satisfactorily. That is an indication that “affordable micro-irrigation for vegetables” (AMIV) systems could be the answer for improving irrigated vegetable production in West Africa. This chapter examines the current issues of irrigated agriculture in the West African sub-region with particular reference to the potential of irrigation for income generation, employment and food security and suggests possible “growth paths” for irrigated vegetable production. It draws attention to the agribusiness potential that exists for all actors along the irrigated vegetable value chain. The paper is based on a comprehensive literature review of smallholder irrigation in several West African countries, particularly Nigeria and the Sahel countries, as well as a participatory rural appraisal field surveys in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Senegal. The paper argues for concerted effort by the governments and the private sector (smallholder irrigators and agribusiness concerns) of countries in the dry areas of West Africa to systematically develop micro irrigation systems identified by this and other studies. There is great potential for their use to increase the incomes of smallholder farmers, including women and the employment of the youth in rural and urban areas. They are also important in ensuring food and nutrition security in both rural and urban areas in the West African sub-region

Sustaining small scale irrigation systems: the role of users

Small-scale irrigation schemes constructed for poverty reduction in developing countries are mostly managed by Water User Associations (WUAs). Users contributions in terms of labour towards resource maintenance is critical in sustaining the schemes. The amount of labour contributed depends on many factors, including users perceptions of the governance of WUAs and users willingness to cooperate in collective activities. In this paper we assess the effects of users governance perceptions and cooperativeness on maintenance contributions in northern Ghana. We use household survey data to create indicators of six governance dimensions, and estimate user s cooperativeness through lab-in-the-field experiments. OLS and Tobit regressions are used to respectively assess determinants of labour contributions and cooperativeness. We find that positive governance perceptions and cooperativeness generally affect labour contributions positively. Specifically, perceptions of transparency & cooperation affect labour contributions directly; and accountability and sustainable use both influence labour contributions directly and indirectly as mediated by the cooperativeness of users. Conflict management however has a negative impact on cooperativeness, and through that on labour contributions. We conclude that although better governance perceptions generally influence labour contributions to the maintenance of irrigation schemes positively, different dimensions differ in their direct as well as indirect contributions. Acknowledgement