AICCRA Country Scaling Vision: Ghana

Ghana conceptual framework to achieve country’s scaling vision was constructed around mutually reinforcing key elements interacting with one another to produce the desired outcomes: innovation (CSA/CIS), beneficiaries, enabling environment, drivers and service providers. Monitoring evaluation and the associated learning is identified as an integral part of the process. Critical decisions need to be made in terms of scaling mechanisms to embrace, advocacy and science-policy dialogues, strategic partners to engage, CSA/CIS potential to drive the outcomes, their costs and accessible financial structures and products

The coping strategies of “men left behind” in the migration process in Ghana

Previous studies report that independent transnational female migration is growing rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, scholarship on the ‘left-behind’ in the migration process largely focuses on women and children, with little attention paid to men left behind. Using qualitative methods, with Folkman et al.’s coping theory, to examine the coping strategies of men left behind in the migration process in Ghana, this study fills an important research gap in the migration and the left-behind literature. Through the snowball sampling method, 12 in-depth interviews were conducted with men in the Accra Metropolis whose spouses were staying abroad. Participants explained that left-behind husbands cope with domestic work and care through support from family relations, careful planning and time management, eating out in food joints, and paid services from domestic workers. Participants also mentioned that these men cope emotionally through social media, religion, regular visits to spouses and engaging in extramarital affairs. The results demonstrate that in the absence of migrant spouses, husbands adapt using a variety of coping mechanisms

Justice and Inclusiveness: The Reconfiguration of Global–Local Relationships in Sustainability Initiatives in Ghana’s Cocoa Sector

Pressure from the public and non-governmental organisations is pushing lead companies in the cocoa and chocolate sectors towards becoming more environmentally sustainable and socially just. Because of this, several sustainability programmes, certification schemes and delivery initiatives have been introduced. These have changed the relationship between chocolate companies, cocoa exporters, and small-scale farmers. This paper observes how large companies in the cocoa export and consumer markets are shifting away from their traditionally remote position in the cocoa sector. The pressure to ensure sustainability and justice has provoked more mutually dependent relationships with cocoa producers. Our analysis outlines the implications this emerging reconfiguration of global-local relationships has for procedural justice principles of interdependence and refutability, and the distributive justice principles of need and equity. These principles are important because they enable the different dimensions of inclusion: ownership, voice, risk, and reward. This paper highlights and qualifies arrangements surrounding these justice principles that manifest in the way five service delivery initiatives - associated with sustainability programmes and led by major buying companies in Ghana’s cocoa sector – are implemented. We show inclusiveness as an outcome of dynamic global-local relationships that are constantly reworked in response to smallholder farmers’ agency and state regulations. Portraying inclusiveness as an outcome of interactions changes its conceptualisation from a predefined ethical standpoint included in the design of standards to a result of unfolding mutual dependencies, which refashion how inclusive agriculture value chains work

Making knowledge work in practice

The premise of this chapter is that a focus on practices and their relationships opens a methodological space to investigate how a variety of actors or small groups make knowledge work. The chapter contextualises the methodological discussion in global commodity chains and local food markets, which feature a layered organisational set-up and spatially distributed tasks. It offers a methodological perspective which emphasises: (1) the use of knowledge to make situated practices work; (2) underlying processes of coordination emerging from mutually constituting practices distributed in space; (3) the processes configuring externally-induced and knowledge-based interventions with situated practices. This chapter combines literature at the interface between organisation studies, technology studies, and learning studies, using a practice lens to study knowledge as an accomplishment and an essentially social activity. Two case studies substantiate this methodological perspective: pruning in the global commodity chain of cocoa in Ghana; and the practice of aggregating volumes in local food markets for oilseed and edible oil in Uganda. The focus on knowing as emerging from situated practice is appreciative of local problem-solving capacities, and contributes to detecting and opening spaces for inserting these capacities in the specialised knowing generated in mainstream science and technology institutes

The contribution of non-cash remittances to the welfare of households in the Kassena-Nankana District, Ghana

This study examined the flow of non-cash remittances in the Kassena-Nankana District in Ghana. Twenty in-depth interviews were held with recipients (respondents) of non-cash remittances and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that non-cash remittances were in the form of foodstuff and electronic appliances and they were used for various purposes. The perspectives and experiences of respondents indicate that these transfers contribute significantly to improving household welfare. Thus, establishing institutional policies to facilitate the flow of non-cash remittances will not only benefit recipients but can also contribute to the socio-economic development of receiving countries through taxation.</p

Constructing A Climate-Smart readiness index for smallholder farmers: The case of prioritized bundles of climate information services and climate smart agriculture in Ghana

Issues around bundling of climate smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) have been kept relatively distinct whereas in reality, they are more impactful when integrated. Using the case of the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Change Research in Africa (AICCRA) Project that emphasizes bundling as a critical component of research in development, six regions of Ghana were purposively selected based on the identified value chain crops for implementation. 120 respondents including practicing farmers and advisors as reference, rated contributions of 21 innovations to 25 climate smartness indicators. These include gender, youth and social inclusion (GSI), enabling environment (EE), ability to enhance soil, water, crop and animal health (One-Health Achievement) (OHA), end-user friendliness (EUF) and climate smart agriculture (CS) for prioritization, bundling and ultimately to construct a Climate Smart Readiness Index (CSRI). There was a high level of concordance between the ratings of farmers and advisors on the Climate Smartness; moderate concordance on OHA and a lower concordance on GSI. The CS and EUF had a significant and same agreement among farmers while EE had a substantial same agreement among advisors. These elements (CS, GSI, OHA, EUF, EE) formed an integral part of the CSRI construct confirmed by the Fornell-Larcker and the Heterotrait-Monotrait criteria. While OHA was the fundamental factor in determining CSRI for farmers, EE was considered more important by the advisors. CSRI informs policy makers and agricultural practitioners on appropriate bundling of CSA and CIS practices to generate evidence for farmer preparedness in the context of resilience, productivity, adaptation, and mitigation