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Ghana

The village woman in Ghana

Upphovsperson: Bukh, Jette
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet; Center for Development Research, Copenhagen
År: 1979
Ämnesord: Ghana, West Africa, Women, Rural women, Education of women, Women's participation, Land tenure, Rural economy, Ethnic groups, Case studies, Social anthropology/ethnography, Socialantrolopologi/etnografi
The difficult position of women in Ghanian society lies both in structures that are manifested through the policy of the state, and in factors that are specific for this society, having their origin in this traditional structure. The relinquishment by the peasants of control over their immediate situation has led to the loss of traditional techniques and distortion of social relations. Money rather than labour claims has become the medium of social interchange. A case study conducted in a village in Ghana is used to illustrate the position of women in a patriarchial society subjected to pressures from various directions. Changes in the traditional agriculture caused by the introduction of cocoa resulted in greater pressure on land used for food production. Together with overcopping and the destruction of forests by charcoal-burners, there has been a general impoverishment of land resources and a reduction of the nutritional value of the crops grown. In 1972 the role of women as food producers began to be recognised and the role of female extension officers has become more important. The disadvantageous position of women in agriculture and in coping with the exigencies of social life is emphasised. The analysis shows how a new type of woman-headed household has emerged. In relation to the male-head the womanhead is always in an inferior situation since she has to cope with subsistence responsibilities at the same time as her access to resources is poorer.

Begging and almsgiving in Ghana : Muslim positions towards poverty and distress

Upphovsperson: Weiss, Holger
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2007
Ämnesord: Muslims, Islam, Economic conditions, Marginality, Poverty alleviation, Social welfare, Social security, Political islam, Ghana, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
The vast majority of Muslims in Africa generally do not 'objectify' concepts such as poverty and religion in discussion. Poverty is a situation for 'ordinary' poor people in rural or urban poor areas where people seek to make marginal gains in income to avoid ever-threatening destitution and social disintegration. Most of these 'ordinary' poor people, especially poor and illiterate women, do not really believe that things can change. There exists, however, in all Muslim societies and communities in Africa a minority that criticize social and political conditions in society with the stated aim of striving for an Islamic solution to poverty and injustice. The common denominator for this group is that they are urban educated Muslims, having both a traditional educational background and, usually but not always, a modern, secular one, too. For them, the concept of poverty more readily forms part of a religious discourse involving feasible strategies for change. Their basic idea is to highlight the possibilities of generating new forms of financial resources by combining Islamic ethics and norms with a modern development-oriented outlook. Their vision is the usability of obligatory almsgiving in a modern context, namely that, instead of the traditional individual-centred 'person-to-person' charities, zakāt or obligatory almsgiving should be directed to become the source of communal and collective societal improvement. This study focuses on the conditions of poverty and the debate among Muslims in Ghana, a West African country with a substantial but largely economically and politically marginalized Muslim population.

Beyond territory and scarcity : exploring conflicts over natural resource management

Medarbetare: Gausset, Quentin | Whyte, Michael | Birch-Thomsen, Torben
Utgivare: Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2005
Ämnesord: Resources management, environmentel degradation, natural resources, conflicts, boundaries, Living conditions, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Dmocratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Social anthropology, Socialantropologi
The attainment of sound and sustainable environmental management is one of humanity's greatest challenges this century, particularly in Africa, which is still heavily dependent on the exploitation of natural and agricultural resources and is faced with rapid population growth. Yet, this challenge should not be reduced to Malthusian parameters and the simple question of population growth and failing resources.In this volume, ten anthropologists and geographers critically address traditionalMalthusian discourses in essays that attempt to move "beyond territory andscarcity" by:- Exploring alternatives to the strong natural determinism that reduces natural resource management to questions of territory and scarcity.- Presenting material and methodologies that explore the different contexts in which social and cultural values intervene, and discovering more than 'rational choice' in the agency of individuals.- Examining the relevance of the different conceptions of territory for the ways in which people manage, or attempt to manage, natural resources.- Placing their research within the framework of the developing discussion on policy and politics in natural resource management. The studies are drawn from a range of sub-Saharan African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. CONTENT Introduction. Quentin Gausset and Michael Whyte Land and Labour: Agrarian Change in Post-retrenchment Lesotho. Christian Boehm Social Resilience in African Dryland Livelihoods: Deriving Lessons for Policy. Michael Mortimore The Making of an Environment: Ecological History of the Kapsiki/Higi of North Cameroon and North Eastern Nigeria. Walter van Beek and Sonja Avontuur Agro-pastoral Conflicts in the Tikar Plain (Adamawa, Cameroon). Quentin Gausset Transhumance, Tubes and Telephones: Drought Related Migration as a Process of Innovation. Kristine Juul Understanding Resource Management in Western Sudan: A Critical Look at New Institutional Economics. Leif Manger Within, and Beyond, Territories: A Comparison of Village Land Use Management and Livelihood Diversificationin Burkina Faso and Southwest Niger. Simon Batterbury Moving the Boundaries of Forest and Land Use History: The Case of Upper East Region in Northern Ghana. Andrew Wardell Transnational Dimensions to Environmental Resource Dynamics: Modes of Governance and Local Resource Management in Eastern DRC. James Fairhead

Ghana - long term growth, atrophy and stunted recovery

Upphovspersoner: Leith, J. Clark | Söderling, Ludvig
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2003
Ämnesord: Ghana, Post-independence, political development, Economic policy, economic reform, Economic recession, Business and economics, Ekonomi
Ghana's independence in March 1957 was celebrated with great flourish. "Free at last!" Kwame Nkrumah, the country's leader, proclaimed. Yes, Ghana was free to follow an independent political course, and free to experiment with an independent economic direction. But the exercise of that freedom proved to be destructive. Gradually removing internal agents of restraint, and unconcerned about external constraints, Nkrumah pursued his grand vision of Ghana. But, that vision became a nightmare. More than a quarter century of increasingly chaotic political and economic turbulence followed.Eventually a major reform program was launched, but after fifteen years its success has been modest. While the downward spiral has been halted, and real growth resumed, real GDP per capita and total factor productivity have barely exceeded the levels achieved at independence. The long-run economic and political records are both lackluster, each limiting the potential of the other. The question is, why has Ghana not achieved sustained and rapid long-term growth? This study seeks to provide an answer.As we review the experience of the forty plus years of independence, five explanatory themes recur. The first theme is excess demand. Repeatedly, fiscal and monetary policies have been excessively expansionary, generating bouts of inflation, followed by painful adjustment. Ghanaian entrepreneurs have seldom been able to count on a stable macroeconomic environment for more than a few months into the future. Such a short-term horizon has been damaging. Currency overvaluation is the second theme. Initially the problem was a fixed nominal exchange rate, maintained in the face of domestic inflation. Exchange controls followed, while inflation accelerated. The real price of foreign exchange was depressed to a small fraction of its level at independence, and forced the economy to become virtually autarkic. Recovery of the real exchange rate under the reform program has occurred, but its instability remains a serious source of uncertainty for all - exporters, import competing producers, and foreign investors alike. Third, closely related to the foregoing, Ghana has frequently failed to realize the potential gains from pursuing and supporting its comparative advantage. Among the traditional exports, cocoa suffered from a variety of devices that suppressed the real producer price and depressed production to well belowits optimum. Minerals, until recently, endured state ownership, and neglect of infrastructure. The fourth theme is suppression of the financial sector. With the state heavily involved in running financial institutions, and repeated confiscation of assets both directly and via inflation, individuals are reluctant to hold financial assets. The financial sector, consequently, does not yet play its potential roles in bringing savers and investors together. The fifth theme concerns the role of the state. The state was stretched far beyond its abilities. The overextended reach of government and the administrative complexity of many programs pushed the state well beyond the limits of activities that it could handle efficiently and without corruption. This seriously compromised the effectiveness of nearly everything the state was involved in, ranging from education to health care to state-owned enterprises to administration of economic controls. The outcome was a near collapse of the state. Not only was the state ineffective in its economic activities, but it failed to consistently control predation by its agents. Real assets were confiscated, both by direct seizure and indirectly by economic policies. At various times agents of the state extorted huge rents from society and beat hapless victims. The lingering sense that such experiences might recur, leaves the economy achieving far less than its potential, in spite of significant economic and political reforms achieved over the past fifteen years. To appreciate why Ghana's modern history unfolded in this way, it is necessary to understand both the political and economic dimensions. We begin in Chapter 1 with an overview of the economic and political record of the various regimes that governed Ghana from independence through to the launch of the economic reform program in 1983. Those reforms and the consequences are the subject of Chapter 2. The major conclusions are presented in Chapter 3.

Mining in Africa: regulation and development

Medarbetare: Campbell, Bonnie
Utgivare: London : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet & Pluto Press
År: 2009
Ämnesord: Mining, Mineral resources, Economic and social development, Poverty alleviation, Macroeconomics, Regulations, Environmental protection, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Madagascar, Congo DR, Business and economics, Ekonomi
The continent of Africa is rich in minerals needed by Western economies. Yet the mining industry contributes very little to African development. Investigating the impact of the 2003 Extractive Industries Review on a number of African countries, the contributors find that a key dimension of the problem lies in the regulatory frameworks imposed on African countries by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. They aim to convince academics, governments, and industry that regulation needs to be reformed to create a mining industry favourable to social and economic development and environmental protection. The book takes a multidisciplinary approach and provides an historical perspective of each country, making it ideal for students of development studies. CONTENT Acknowledgements Introduction - Bonnie Campbell Chapter 1. Mining in Ghana: Implications for National Economic Development and Poverty Reduction – Thomas Akabzaa Chapter 2. Guinea and Bauxite-Aluminum: The Challenges of Development and Poverty Reduction – Bonnie Campbell Chapter 3. Mining, Poverty Reduction, the Protection of the Environment and the Role of the World Bank Group in Mali – Gisèle Belem Chapter 4. Mining and Protection of the Environment in Madagascar – Bruno Sarrasin Chapter 5. Governance, Human Rights and Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – Marie Mazalto Chapter 6. Conclusion: What Development Model? What Government Agenda? – Bonnie Campbell Index

Global restructuring and land rights in Ghana : forest food chains, timber and rural livelihoods

Upphovsperson: Amanor, Kojo Sebastian
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainsitutet
År: 1999
Ämnesord: Ghana, West Africa, Land tenure, Food production, Forestry, Structural adjustment, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
The report highlights the long history of commodification of land and labour in Ghana, linked to speculative activites and more recently to the activities of international capital, agribusiness, international agricultural centres and agencies of the state. It makes the case for a new land, agrarian and natural resource regime that prioritises domestic economic needs to provide security of livelihood to the generality of the people.

African families in a global context

Upphovsperson: Therborn, Göran
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2006
Ämnesord: Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, demographic change, family, family structure, gender roles, social problems, Sociology, Sociologi
The family is one of the most important institutions of African societies. Where is it going today? How is it affected by global processes, cultural and political as well as economic? How does it compare with family developments in other parts of the world? These are questions, which this report addresses. It deals with – the African family in a comparative global context, focusing on patriarchy, sexuality and marriage, and fertility;– biological and social reproduction in Ghana under conditions of globalization and structural adjustment;– Nigerian marriage relations under the impact of current conditions;– family changes in the North (Britain) viewed from and compared with a family perspective from the South (South Africa).

Land, labour and the family in southern Ghana : a critique of land policy under neo-liberalisation

Upphovsperson: Amanor, Kojo Sebastian
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2001
Ämnesord: Land policy, Land tenure, Labour, family, Kinship, Ghana, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
This report is based on field work carried out in the Akyem Abuakwa area of the forest region of Ghana, a section of the country rich in agricultural land, gold, and diamonds. Through the field work which was undertaken and the empirical material generated, the author attempts to chart the processes and patterns of differentiation connected to land and land use in contemporary Ghana. In addition to class-related differentiation, he also identifies intra-household, generational and gender differences as well as their implications for the mobilisation of family labour and the emergence of new land and labour markets. The conclusions which the author draws challenge some of the dominant theoretical approaches to the land question in contemporary Africa, particularly the evolutionary property rights and communitarian approaches.

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