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This paper studies the dynamics of labor productivity convergence and technology catch-up within Africa, shedding light on two important and inter-related issues that are central to Africa's growth: (i) convergence of relative productivity among African countries and (ii) the role of technological change and technological catchup in driving productivity change across and within African countries. We do this by using a nonparametric method to estimate an African production frontier. Productivity change in Africa is decomposed into two components: technological change and technological catch-up. Our results show that Botswana and Mauritius are the only two countries in Africa that have converged to the productivity as well as the efficiency level of the frontier. This successful convergence is driven more by technological catch-up and less by technological change. We explore the special role of technological catch-up by decomposing it into within-sector convergence, between-sector convergence and initial specialization using a structural model (Shift and Share catch-up decomposition). The results highlight the special role of structural change in closing the productivity gap with the frontier. This paper contributes to recent evidence suggesting that countries can climb up the income ladder at a faster rate through a two-pronged transformation - i.e., structural change and technological catch-up.

COVID-19 has had uneven impacts on health and well-being, with Indigenous communities in the Global South facing some of the highest risks. Focusing on the experience of Sri Lanka, this study identifies key policy responses to COVID-19, documents how they evolved over two years of the pandemic, and examines if and how government responses have addressed issues pertaining to Indigenous Peoples. Drawing upon an analysis of policy documents (n = 110) and interviews with policymakers (n = 20), we characterize seven key policy responses implemented by the Sri Lankan government: i) testing for and identifying COVID-19; ii) quarantine procedures; iii) provisional clinical treatments; iv) handling other diseases during COVID-19; v) movement; vi) guidelines to be adhered to by the general public; and vii) health and vaccination. The nature of these responses changed as the pandemic progressed. There is no evidence that policy development or implementation incorporated the voices and needs of Indigenous Peoples. © 2023

The uncertainties and biases associated with Global Climate Models (GCMs) ascend from global to regional and local scales which delimits the applicability and suitability of GCMs in site-specific impact assessment research. The study downscaled two GCMs to evaluate effects of climate change (CC) in the Black Volta Basin (BVB) using Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM) and 40-year ground station data. The study employed Taylor diagrams, dimensionless, dimensioned, and goodness of fit statistics to evaluate model performance. SDSM produced good performance in downscaling daily precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature in the basin. Future projections of precipitation by HadCM3 and CanESM2 indicated decreasing trend as revealed by the delta statistics and ITA plots. Both models projected near- to far-future increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation by 2.05-23.89, 5.41–46.35, and 5.84–35.33% in the near, mid, and far future respectively. Therefore, BVB is expected to become hotter and drier by 2100. As such, climate actions to combat detrimental effects on the BVB must be revamped since the basin hosts one of the largest hydropower dams in Ghana. The study is expected to support the integration of CC mitigation into local, national, and international policies, and support knowledge and capacity building to meet CC challenges.

The environment plays a vibrant role in sustaining human life such that without a suitable environment, humans will find it difficult to survive. The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana mandates an excellent and healthy environment for all. Hence, it’s a human right that must be upheld and needs a collective effort to sustain it. Thus, the state, government, and stakeholders must protect and manage the environment to implement sustainable development. The Ghanaian environment can support Ghanaians in line with implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDGs have since 2015 become the regulating framework driving global development discussions. This paper examines the nexus between environmental law enforcement and implementing SDGs in Ghana. The researchers adopted a complete interpretative document analysis for this study, which showed the careful but rigorous investigation of environmental law enforcement and SDGs. This technique confirmed the genuineness of the information studied and interpreted in the study. The study found that environmental law enforcement and the implementation of SDGs in Ghana are directly linked. Thus, the regulation aligns with the goals of 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 15 of the SDGs directly associated with environmental sustainability. Also, environmental law enforcement in Ghana through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concerning Environmental Protection and Management is protective and suppressive. This study further unravels that a supervisory outline is mandatory to enable sustainable development within Ghana’s environmental protection and law enforcement issues and to guarantee its alignment with SDGs. This should be established based on the participation of stakeholders. As a result, the researchers recommend that the government establish strong management and accountability in sustainable development by measuring, supervising, revising, and evaluating their growth towards meeting SDGs in environmental issues geared towards achieving SDG targets and frequently communicating their development to the public.

In consonance with the universal quest for sustainable development, the United Nations (UN) declared 17 global goals in 2015 known as the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Scholarly literature has highlighted the relevance of trees and forests (TFs) to this quest from various perspectives. However, the perspectives appear elitist, as they tend to exclude those of some seemingly ordinary but actually crucial actors whose activities directly affect the growth, health, and population of TFs, namely small-scale farmers, chainsaw operators, and artisanal miners operating particularly in rural areas in developing countries. The study examined the excluded perspectives of the said actors in selected rural comminutes in Ghana on the relevance of TFs to SD. The study was guided by the SDGs in its data collection, analysis, and reporting approach. Focus group discussions were held with the farmers and miners, while in-depth interviews were held with the chainsaw operators. The actors‘ perspectives generally indicated that TFs were relevant to seven, not relevant to six, and somehow relevant to four of the 17 SDGs. Although the actors saw TFs as important for SD, they (actors) were not favourably disposed to tree-planting for purposes of land restoration because they saw TFs as renewable resources with natural regenerative capacity. Stronger advocacy and more intensive sensitization by the central and local governments, forestry commission, and other pro-environmental organisations, institutions, and agencies on the importance of growing, nurturing, and conserving TFS for SD are recommended. Furthermore, the government should enforce regulations to stop the destruction of TFs by the actors to ensure a sustainable green environment for sustainable development.

In comparison to Europe, Asia, and America, the African manufacturing sector performs poorly. This is largely attributable in part to inadequate use of advanced manufacturing concepts and technologies, as well as the insufficiently skilled workforce. African manufacturing companies must adopt and implement advanced manufacturing technologies and concepts such as flexible manufacturing systems in order to boost growth and accelerate development in the sector. In this study, we conducted multi-case studies on the implementation of flexible manufacturing systems in the manufacturing sectors of two West African countries (The Gambia and Ghana). Six manufacturing companies from The Gambia and eight from Ghana were chosen. Many of the companies involved in the study are small businesses that specialize in mechanical parts/system production, welding, and fabrication. The findings revealed that the use of advanced manufacturing technologies and concepts, as well as the adoption of flexible manufacturing systems, is extremely low. The results also show that the major obstacles to the adoption and implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies are, cost and, lack of qualified personnel. Companies have agreed to adopt and implement advanced manufacturing technologies and concepts if the opportunity arises. They also require more information on some cutting-edge technologies before deciding whether to adopt and implement them. Some of the other major challenges faced by African manufacturing companies include, high energy costs and unstable power supply, poor transportation network, and, lack of adequate finance.

The advent and development of technologies such as artificial intelligence have created benefits and challenges for educational stakeholders. Artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI’s Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT), has brought new benefits, challenges and pressures for higher educational institutions. There are relatively few reports of how students perceive and intend to use ChatGPT. Taking cognizance of these, the research explored students’ perceptions and intentions to use ChatGPT in their higher education. Guided by two hypotheses and a mixed-method approach, the analysis revealed no statistical relationship between perception and intention to use ChatGPT. Despite this statistical relationship, the study reported students’ positive perceptions towards ChatGPT, and intentions to use ChatGPT and advocated its adoption in education. Based on these findings, the study offers implications for educational practices and further research.

Many natural products have been shown to possess antiplasmodial activities, but their protein targets are unknown. This work employed molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations to explore the inhibitory activity of some antiplasmodial natural products against wild-type and mutant strains of Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase (PfDHFR). From the molecular docking study, 6 ligands preferentially bind at the active site of the DHFR domain with binding energies ranging from −6.4 to −9.5 kcal/mol. Interactions of compounds with MET55 and PHE58 were mostly observed in the molecular docking study. From the molecular dynamics study, the binding of 2 of the ligands—nitidine and oplodiol—was observed to be stable against all tested strains of PfDHFR. The average binding free energy of oplodiol in complex with the various PfDHFR strains was −93.701 kJ/mol whereas that of nitidine was −106.206 kJ/mol. The impressive in silico activities of the 2 compounds suggest they could be considered for development as potential antifolate agents. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation studies suggest oplodiol and nitidine as compounds capable of inhibiting Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase and its variants.

The study examined the effects of sports betting on the moral behaviour of students in Colleges of Education in Ghana. A descriptive research design was adopted for the study. Using the multi-stage technique involving proportionate and simple random sampling procedures, three hundred and two (302) students from five colleges of Education in Ghana. Questionnaires were the instruments used in collecting data for the study. The data was analysed through the computation of frequency counts, and percentages, as well as means and standard deviations. The study demonstrated that students had a positive perception of the effects of sports betting on their moral behaviours. They believed that sports betting was not immoral, that it might be profitable and that it was only beneficial to those who understood how it worked. The students were unsure as to whether sports betting was against their religious beliefs or if it was only for slothful people who did not want to work. Despite these, the students mentioned that sports betting can be addictive; it is a very risky business, and people despise those that bet. Thus the study concluded that even though sports betting appears lucrative, it is addictive and can cause more harm than good. It recommended the necessity of Guidance and Counselling Units on Colleges of Education campuses running programs to inform students about exaggerated claims about the advantages of sports betting and the negative effects of sports betting. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the phenomena of sports betting by presenting a contextual view of the activity, particularly among young Ghanaian college students. Keywords: Perceptions, Morality, Sports Betting, Students, Colleges of Education

This study is mainly about using GeoGebra as a tool for improving mathematics instruction and learning by Ghanaian teachers. The quantitative method was employed for the study and the descriptive statistics of the study were the mean, standard deviation, percentages, and frequencies were used. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used in answering the Hypothesis test. The sample size for the study comprised 10 junior high schools and 13 primary schools. A total of 74 samples made of mathematics teachers were used of which 40 were junior high teachers and 34 were primary school teachers. A questionnaire with 10 questions/items with 4 options or 4 Likert scales for each was used in measuring the use of GeoGebra as a tool to improve mathematics instructions or learning by Ghanaian teachers (primary teachers and junior high school teachers). The study indicated that teachers believe that GeoGebra could effectively improve mathematics instruction and learning in the classroom. It also showed that teachers are ready to learn and adopt the use of technology (ICT) in their lesson delivery.

Purpose: This study aimed to create and evaluate digitally recorded speech materials for speech recognition threshold (SRT) testing among children and adults in Fante. Fifty-one (51) familiar trisyllabic words were chosen from a list of 107 widely used trisyllabic Fante words. They were digitally captured and edited to create the same root mean square as a 1-kHz calibration tone. Method: The study used a three-phase cross-sectional study method. Twenty native Fante speakers with normal hearing thresholds were selected at random for listener evaluation. For each of the words, the researchers used logistic regression to measure the slope, intercepts, and psychometric function slope at 50% and from 20% to 80%. In the study, the intensity of each word was modified digitally, so that the threshold at 50% of each word was equal to the mean pure-tone average (PTA) of the participants to increase the homogeneity of the thresholds of the selected words. Results: A final list of 25 familiar homogenous words with the same tone patterns of slopes greater than 7%/dB was finally selected and recorded for speech audiometry in Fante. Conclusions: Psychometrically equivalent trisyllabic words in Fante were successfully developed and evaluated for SRT testing in Ghana. There is a need for the development of speech audiometry materials in other Ghanaian languages.

Introduction: Under-five years old (U5) children that reside in oil spill communities are exposed to various pollutants, and therefore are prone to respiratory symptoms and diseases. This study aimed to develop a deeper understanding on the lived experiences of U5 children residing in these communities. Methods: The study was done in August, 2022 , on eleven caregivers/parents of U5 children, aged 26-45 years old via purposive sampling. This study utilized a phenomenological research design through in-depth interviews and audio recordings. Results: Findings revealed that numerous oil spills have occurred, and are still occurring. According to the respondents, these spills are caused majorly by poor maintenance of old, rusted pipelines of oil companies; and pipeline vandalism, leading to land, water and air pollution. Results also showed that these spills have led to several adverse respiratory health (RH) experiences in U5, including cough, catarrh, chest pain and other health emergencies that have resulted in frequent hospital visitations and admissions like difficulty/fast breathing, pneumonia, hemoptysis, exacerbation of previously existing conditions, asthma development, etc. The destruction of their source of livelihood, have contributed to worsening these symptoms. Conclusion: U5 children living in crude oil polluted areas are burdened with a high prevalence of respiratory symptoms and diseases. Implementation of already existing regulatory laws on oil pollution, prompt clean-up of oil spills, provision of standard health facilities, and trained health personnels, were some of the measures recommended to curb the menace of crude oil spills and its RH effects.

The secondary agents of social connections are schools. Since schools have access to trained professionals and resources, it is assumed that this is the only place where students’ moral and ethical development can be reinforced and flourish. As a result, the school’s role is to support students in developing their moral judgment. However, present students’ behaviour in the post-free senior high school period is getting out of hand, both on school campuses and in society. This has raised a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the free senior high school policy on students’ moral development. This necessitated research into how the policy has affected students’ conduct and moral development. The researchers employed a descriptive survey design for this study. Interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data from forty-one (41) participants, consisting of twenty-one (21) students, ten (10) teachers, and ten (10) parents in Sefwi Wiawso Municipality in the Western North Region of Ghana. It was established that the policy has led to mass moral literacy (moral education). On the other hand, other challenges have impaired students’ moral development. The findings call for and necessitate that those with a vested interest in the free senior high school policy do an evaluation and revision of the program. Keywords: Ghana, Free Senior High School Policy, Morality, and Moral Development, Double Track System

The integration of courses (subjects) is currently trending in all facets of the educational curriculum. Therefore, studies must be done to holistically look into the impacts and perceptions of teachers and learners on the integration of courses in our educational systems. This paper examined students’ perception of the combination of Physical Education and Music and Dance as an integrated course in colleges of education in Ghana. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from 10 purposively sampled students (five women and five men) in two strategically selected colleges of education in the Ashanti Region, Ghana. Content analysis was used as a tool for data analysis. Based on the results, the students found the PEMD course the most enjoyable, especially the practical aspects of PE and the dance drama aspect of the music. The students further envisaged that playing musical instruments was a challenge during the music course and the PE course was primarily full of classroom work (theory). In advance, the students recommended that, with the PEMD, the PE aspect should be separated from the music since both are comprehensive courses, and each can stand on its own as a course. Again, the participants asserted that the course should be more practically oriented than before. Therefore, the PEMD course should be more practical than theory and separated to allow PE and Music to stand on their own as a course since they have no apparent relationship.

BACKGROUND Disparities in hypertension outcomes persist among Black and Hispanic adults and persons living in poverty in the United States. The “LINKED-BP Program” is a multi-level intervention linking home blood pressure (BP) monitoring with a mobile health application, support from community health workers (CHWs), and BP measurement training at primary care practices to improve BP. This study is part of the American Heart Association RESTORE (AddREssing Social Determinants TO pRevent hypErtension) Network. This study aims to examine the effect of the LINKED-BP Program on BP reduction and to evaluate the reach, adoption, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness of the intervention. METHODS Using a hybrid type I effectiveness-implementation design, 600 adults who have elevated BP or untreated stage 1 hypertension without diabetes, chronic kidney disease, history of cardiovascular disease (stroke or coronary heart disease) and age < 65 years will be recruited from 20 primary care practices including community health centers in the Maryland area. The practices are randomly assigned to the intervention or the enhanced usual care arms. Patients in the LINKED-BP Program receive training on home BP monitoring, BP telemonitoring through the Sphygmo app, and CHW telehealth visits for education and counseling on lifestyle modification over 12 months. The primary clinical outcome is change from baseline in systolic BP at 6 and 12 months. DISCUSSIONS The LINKED-BP Program tests a sustainable, scalable approach to prevent hypertension and advance health equity. The findings will inform implementation strategies that address social determinants of health and barriers to hypertension prevention in underserved populations. ClinicalTrials.gov IDENTIFIER NCT05180045.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to find out the use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Individual Psychology (IP) in the reduction of suicide ideation among undergraduate students in the University of Cape Coast. Methodology: It was a quantitative study using the quasi-experimental research design, specifically, the pre-test, post-test and control group design. A total of 30 undergraduate students from four colleges of the University of Cape Coast in the Central Region of Ghana were non- randomly assigned to two treatment groups (CBT and IP) and one control group. Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation was used for the collection of data for the study. Both the descriptive (frequency and percentage) and inferential (dependent samples t-test and independent samples t-test) statistics were used to analyse the data at the alpha level of .05. Findings: The study revealed that CBT and IP are effective in reducing suicide ideation among undergraduate students at University Cape Coast. Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: It was recommended that screening for suicide ideation among students be carried out on a regular basis organised by the Counselling Centre. This is with the intention of helping to educate them and creating more awareness on suicide ideation among students thereby bringing in more people per the screening to benefit from the therapies

BACKGROUND The American Heart Association funded a Health Equity Research Network on the prevention of hypertension, the RESTORE Network, as part of its commitment to achieving health equity in all communities. This article provides an overview of the RESTORE Network. METHODS The RESTORE Network includes five independent, randomized trials testing approaches to implement non-pharmacological interventions that have been proven to lower blood pressure (BP). The trials are community-based, taking place in churches in rural Alabama, mobile health units in Michigan, barbershops in New York, community health centers in Maryland, and food deserts in Massachusetts. Each trial employs a hybrid effectiveness-implementation research design to test scalable and sustainable strategies that mitigate social determinants of health (SDOH) that contribute to hypertension in Black communities. The primary outcome in each trial is change in systolic BP. The RESTORE Network Coordinating Center has five cores: BP measurement, statistics, intervention, community engagement, and training that support the trials. Standardized protocols, data elements and analysis plans were adopted in each trial to facilitate cross-trial comparisons of the implementation strategies, and application of a standard costing instrument for health economic evaluations, scale up, and policy analysis. Herein, we discuss future RESTORE Network research plans and policy outreach activities designed to advance health equity by preventing hypertension. CONCLUSIONS The RESTORE Network was designed to promote health equity in the US by testing effective and sustainable implementation strategies focused on addressing SDOH to prevent hypertension among Black adults.

Conversation either verbal or non-verbal is an important aspect of a marital relationship that brings about marital happiness. This study sought to investigate the impacts of acceptance, lack of conversation and inheritance issues on relationship happiness among inter-and-intra ethnic relationships in the Kumasi Metropolis in the Ashanti Region, Ghana. The researchers used descriptive research survey design. The study employed a qualitative research approach. The data for the study were gathered from inter-and-intra ethnic spouses who are above 20 years of age, have been married for 2 years to 60 years and with an academic background of Junior High School (JHS) and above. Ten (10) couples were used for the study. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the couples from the accessible population. Interviews were used to gather the data. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Major findings of the study revealed that couples in inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic relationships were not happy with respect to their children inheriting their parents. It was therefore, recommended that couples in inter- and intra- ethnic relationships should be schooled to prepare a Will whiles living with the assistance of religious leaders and counsellors. Further, properties acquired during their relationship should be recorded in the names of their children to prevent uncertainty and conflicts after they are dead when the state employs the implementation of PNDC Law 111, 1985 of Ghana. It was also found out that, couples in both inter- and intra-ethnic relationships chose a common medium of expression. It is recommended that, couples from different backgrounds should use a common language for better understanding and to do away with suspicions in the relationships to bring about marital happiness.

Objectives. To analyze rural–urban differences in COVID-19 vaccination uptake, hesitancy, and trust in information sources in the United States. Methods. We used data from a large survey of Facebook users. We computed the vaccination, hesitancy, and decline rates and the trust proportions among individuals hesitant toward COVID-19 information sources for rural and urban regions in each state from May 2021 to April 2022. Results. In 48 states with adequate data, on average, two thirds of states showed statistically significant differences in monthly vaccination rates between rural and urban regions, with rural regions having a lower vaccination rate at all times. Far fewer states showed statistically significant differences when comparing monthly hesitancy and decline rates for urban versus rural regions. Doctors and health professionals received the highest level of trust. Friends and family were also among the most trusted sources in rural areas where the vaccination uptake was low. Conclusions. Rural–urban difference in hesitancy rates among those still unvaccinated was much smaller than the rural–urban difference in vaccination rates, suggesting that access to vaccines may be another contributor to the lower vaccination rates in rural areas. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print April 13, 2023:e1–e9. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307274 )

National anthems are an integral part of every country's identity and heritage. The national anthem represents a country's culture, history, and traditions. However, in many countries, the official anthem is only available in one language, usually the dominant language spoken by most of the population. This exclusionary approach denies linguistic diversity and undermines the cultural rights of minority groups, particularly indigenous communities who are illiterates. In this research paper, we argue that it is necessary to translate the Ghana national anthem into indigenous languages to promote linguistic and cultural diversity, preserve cultural heritage, and promote social inclusion as well as give fundamental human right to language to those Ghanaians who are not able to read and write in the English language. The paper examines case studies of countries that have already taken steps in this direction and evaluate the impact of translating the official anthem into indigenous languages.

For the first time, acrylonitrile–butadiene rubber (NBR)–graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composites were prepared without cure activators: zinc oxide/stearic acid (ZnO/SA) and studied. The vulcanization characteristics of the compounds were systematically studied at 160–190°C, with the aid of rheometer and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) techniques. NBR revealed rapid curing time (t90) with greater cure rate index compared with NBR–GO/rGO composites for the rheometer measurement. This results were in correspondence with the activation energies Ea (kJ/mol) calculated by Ozawa and Kissinger models of vulcanization kinetics. NBR–rGO obtained reduced t90 and Ea (kJ/mol) than NBR–GO, perhaps due to lower oxygenated groups: epoxide (–C–O–C–), carboxyl (–O–C=O), and hydroxyl (–OH) present. Although, the composites delayed in curing, they significantly recorded high tensile properties with high reinforcing factors than NBR. The order of increasing mechanical properties: NBR

In a typical cocoa farming household, the question of who among the different genders does what needs to be assessed. This is because it is often thought that males do the majority of work in the household. In bringing balance to this argument, this study used the Caroline Moser framework to assess the gender division of labour in cocoa households in the Asante Akim North Municipality in Ghana. In using a mixed methods approach, questionnaires were administered to three hundred (300) respondents and a focus group discussion was organized for a group of 12 (six males and six females) in the Municipality. The study found that most of the women were responsible for performing the reproductive roles whilst the males performed the majority of the productive roles and the community management roles. Limiting women to the performance of reproductive roles can be detrimental to the development of society at large, most especially in a situation where few women take part in productive and communal developmental. Women should therefore be encouraged and allowed to partake in all community activities and decision-making procedures to ensure there is no gender inequality. Keywords: Cocoa Farmers, Community Managing Roles, Gender Division of Labour, Productive Roles, Reproductive Roles, Households

The paper uses a new technique to find a unique solution to a delay differential cobweb model (formulated from a joint supply-demand function of price) with real model parameters via the Lambert W-function without considering any complex branches. The dynamics of the model are demonstrated with simulations and found to complement previous studies using literature values. However, the condition for instability δ / β > 1 in the previous studies was defied by our model due to the time delay associated with the supply function. The practical application and advantage of this model over the existing models are that the stability of this model is not limited to only the ratio of price elasticity of demand and supply but also the time-delay parameter (i.e., a missing link in the previous models). Our model, on the other hand, loses its stability when the time delay associated with the supply function is fixed at τ = 1.8 . Since most of the physical systems, including economical systems, are time-delay inherent and such stability conditionalities should not limit their performance, it is recommended that such systems be modelled using delay differential functions. The novelty of this research is that there has not been a definite general solution to the cobweb model with a time delay whose price dynamics mimic the behaviour of the existing cobweb models in the literature. An illustrative example in a delayed fractional-order differential equation also buttressed the importance of the time delay in the model, aside from the impact of the ratio of the price elasticity of supply and demand.

This study explored the determinants and constraints of the access to finance of Agro Based SMEs in the Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. The research utilized primary data using a structured questionnaire. Sixty (60) SMEs in the Metropolis were selected using the simple random sampling technique. To ensure data reliability and validity, a pilot test was conducted for confirmation. Results show that Agro-based SMEs prefer personal savings as the first means of finance. Also, collateral, owner’s gender, sector of business, availability of audited financial statements, firm’s performance and firm size are the determinants of Agro-based SME’s access to financing. The major challenges faced by Agro-based SMEs in financing their businesses result conclude a lack of the expertise to prepare sophisticated financial statements, less repayment period, unclear financial plans to execute business, non-availability of enough MFIs and bureaucracy. It is recommended that Agro-based SMEs should cultivate the habit of savings personally to serve as the basis for their working capital so as to reduce over-reliance on banks and microfinance institutions. Additionally, Government interventions like MASLOC must be enhanced to allow more SME owners in SME businesses to access financing.

Introduction: Although optimal wellbeing of young adults (YA) is a vital asset for productivity and measurable and sustainable development, there is a dearth of information on the wellbeing status of YA, especially after the COVID-19 lockdown in Ghana. The study has established the post-lockdown wellbeing status of YA in the COVID-19 pandemic epicenters of Ghana. Methods: The wellbeing status of 1783 (24.49 ± 4.62 year) Ghanaian YA from Kumasi, Accra, and Kasoa (known epicentres of COVID) was assessed in this cross-sectional study. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated, and physical, social, emotional, spiritual and intellectual states were assessed. Results: More females were found to be overweight (315, 17.7%) and obese (160, 9.0%) compared to males. The majority (714; 40.0%) of the young adults were between the ages 25-30 years and overweight, with a mean BMI of 25.46 ± 4.67 kg/m2. Overall, 157 (8.8%) had poor, 755 (42.3%) average, 479 (26.9%) good, while 392 (22.0%) had outstanding wellbeing. Specifically, the average grade was recorded for physical (29.07 ± 6.67), spiritual (29.32 ± 6.80), and intellectual (28.29 ± 6.56), while ‘good grade’ was obtained for social (32.16 ± 5.13) and emotional (31.54 ± 5.07) dimensions of wellbeing. Conclusion: Average Ghanaian YA in the study were overweight (BMI value) and had average wellbeing, which may suggest the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Educational and physical activity interventions with meticulous dietary control and proper understanding of family history, age and genetic factors will help to improve the wellbeing of Ghanaian YA.