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This paper draws on qualitative data to examine gendered dynamics of remitting and remittance use in households in northern Ghana. The findings indicate that remitting and remittance use are shaped by the interaction of social norms on household provisioning and agency of household members. While social norms on gender roles and conjugality tend to shape patterns of remitting, the household context and the agency of the individual household members sometimes interact to produce remitting behaviours that are not consistent with the general patterns in the community. Gender roles prescribed by the conjugal contract may change when one partner migrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of African cities is characterised by sprawl, significantly impacting social, economic and environmental systems. The change in land use due to urban sprawl often dispossesses farmers in peri-urban communities, resulting in income loss. Focusing on social and ecological changes in peri-urban communities of Ghana, this paper sheds light on land use and land cover change stemming from urban sprawl. It is argued that land governance systems that shape resource access in peri-urban areas have been transformed with farming being the most impacted. Emerging livelihoods like sand winning further compounds a precarious situation. Women and youth are the most affected, with limited options for alternative occupations and uncertain futures. It is thus imperative that policy interventions prioritise sustainable land governance and urban planning, taking into account the needs and vulnerabilities of peri-urban communities, particularly women and youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Sub-Saharan Africa, empirical evidence has shown that irrigation can have positive impacts on agricultural production and farm incomes. This study uses a rigorous propensity score matching analysis applied to clustered data from two state-led and two farmer-led irrigation examples in Ghana to quantitatively evaluate the intersectional impacts of different types of irrigation on multiple dimensions of farmers' livelihoods. The results of our study indicate that although farmer-led irrigation enhances farmer incomes, this does not necessarily translate into poverty alleviation and prosperity. Furthermore, impacts on young men, young women and adult women are of a different nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effect of mobile money on intra-household employment diversification in Ghana using data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Surveys. The study relies on several econometric models including instrumental variables and shows that mobile money has a statistically significant and positive effect on the probability to diversify employment irrespective of whether diversification is measured across paid employment, household farm and household nonfarm activities or across agriculture, industry and services sectors. Additionally, it was found that mobile money positively affects the extent of employment diversification across paid employment, farm and nonfarm activities. These effects, however, largely pertain to rural communities with null effects for urban communities. A statistically significant and positive effects are found for both male and female headed households although the magnitude of the effect generally tend be slightly higher for male headed households. The findings suggest that policies that promote mobile money adoption and usage can deepen employment diversification, and hence, may help protect or improve household welfare, particularly in rural areas. The study therefore makes a significant contribution on mobile money's impact on household diversification and whether the impact varies by the forms of diversification, gender and locality of residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]