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The study seeks to analyze the effect of women's empowerment on household food security in northern Ghana. Employing Random Effect and Generalized Estimating Equations on the two rounds of Feed the Future dataset, 2012 and 2015, the study measured women empowerment as the comparative years of schooling and decision making by women. Multivariate Decomposition was used to explain whether variations in food insecurity between gendered household types are due to differences in explained and/or unexplained variations. The study showed significant differences in food insecurity levels between male and female headed households. The finding revealed that improving women decision making at the household level will reduce food insecurity by 45%. The study therefore recommends that Ministry of Gender, Children and Social protection should educate male partners on the need for women's decision making and also ensure the establishment of social groups for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooking, an important household activity is often done using heavy polluting fuels by a majority of households in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). In this study, we examine how the choice of cooking fuel affects women empowerment using nationwide household level data from Ghana. We examine whether fuel choices could lead to women's social and economic empowerment. By employing the Survey-based Women Empowerment Index (SWPER) and Principal Component Analysis to construct comprehensive indices of women empowerment, we find that using clean cooking fuel has significant positive associations with women empowerment across all domains and could consequently help reduce inequality to the advantage of women. Other socioeconomic factors such as household size and wealth were found to significantly determine women empowerment status. Both clean cooking fuel use and the reduction of social and economic inequalities are important targets to be met under the Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine how LGBT empowerment is discursively constructed within the material context of postcolonial Ghana, arguing that LGBT empowerment emerges as a contentious site of "glocalized assemblage" that condenses multiple meanings and spatio-temporal histories of colonization, gender, and sexuality to produce contradictory and paradoxical effects on Sassoi. I explain how neoliberal frames of governmentality are embedded in LGBT-centred empowerment programmes through discursive evocations of community, personal responsibility and human rights education. In conclusion, I argue for queer (post)colonial approaches to LGBT empowerment that open up spaces for radical imaginations to social change in Ghana and across the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Few studies have examined the influence of women's participation in farmer groups on female and male empowerment, which is considered essential to improving nutrition. Objectives The study aimed to 1) assess the empowerment of Ghanaian women farmers, 1 adult male family decision-maker per household, and the household gender equality; and 2) investigate the relation of empowerment and household gender equality with women's participation in farmer-based organizations (FBOs), women's and men's nutritional status, and household food security. Methods A cross-sectional study investigated secondary outcomes using baseline data from a nutrition-sensitive agriculture intervention implemented through FBOs in rural Ghana. Existing FBOs in 8 communities were selected based on 6 criteria (e.g. participation level, readiness to change). Female FBO (n  = 166) and non-FBO (n  = 164) members together with a male family member (n  = 205) provided data on individual and household characteristics; empowerment was measured across 11 indicators with the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index. Generalized linear mixed models tested the associations of empowerment and household gender equality with FBO membership, nutritional status, and household food security. Results Women's FBO membership was associated with an increased likelihood of women's empowerment [adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 3.25; 95% CI: 1.97, 5.33] and household gender parity (aOR: 2.82; 95% CI: 1.39, 5.84) but not men's empowerment. Household food insecurity, but not nutritional status, was positively associated with women's FBO participation and individual empowerment indicators (financial services). Food insecurity was negatively associated with the women's empowerment indicator related to attitudes about domestic violence [adjusted β coefficient (aβ): −0.78; 95% CI: −1.35, −0.21] and men's overall empowerment (aβ: −0.79; 95% CI: −1.58, −0.01). Conclusions Understanding the complexity in which FBO participation, empowerment, nutritional status, and food security are linked is critical in designing interventions that promote gender equality and improved nutrition. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03869853. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings from a microcredit (financial inclusion) scheme that has been operated by a non-governmental organization since 2012 in a local community in Ghana, and sustained through the COVID-19 pandemic. It first examines microfinance, women's empowerment and third-sector organizational dynamics. It then provides an overview of microfinance in Ghana within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by dissecting the organization's microcredit, training and women's empowerment programmes. The following part documents the findings, with brief concluding thoughts and policy implications appearing in the last section. It is argued here that financial schemes, particularly those operated by third-sector organizations, can play a significant role in helping women in particular to deal with the secondary effects of COVID-19 by providing improved non-financial services and easy access to microfinance at low, sustainable interest rates. These findings have implications for policy formulation and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's empowerment is often an important goal of development interventions. This paper explores local perceptions of empowerment in the Upper East Region of Ghana and the pathways through which small-scale irrigation intervention targeted to men and women farmers contributes to women's empowerment. Using qualitative data collected with 144 farmers and traders through 28 individual interviews and 16 focus group discussions, this paper innovates a framework to integrate the linkages between small-scale irrigation and three dimensions of women's empowerment: resources, agency, and achievements. The relationship between the components of empowerment and small-scale irrigation are placed within a larger context of social change underlying these relationships. This shows that many women face serious constraints to participating in and benefitting from small-scale irrigation, including difficulties accessing land and water and gender norms that limit women's ability to control farm assets. Despite these constraints, many women do benefit from participating in irrigated farming activities leading to an increase in their agency and well-being achievements. For some women, these benefits are indirect—these women allocate their time to more preferred activities when the household gains access to modern irrigation technology. The result is a new approach to understanding women's empowerment in relation to irrigation technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, there has been growing scholarly interest about the implications of women's increased economic role on household decision-making dynamics. Contributing to these conversations, the current paper examines couples (wives and husbands) perceptions and attitudes towards women's decision-making power in the context of Ghana's small-scale fishery where both couples engage in the same economic activity, performing different, but complementary roles. The study involved interviews with 20 and 18 married female and male fisherfolk respectively, which was part of a larger study by the first author among fisherfolk in the south-western coast of Ghana. We show that accounts of perceived decision-making power of women varied by spouse. Using a gender lens, we show how both women and men discursively reproduced and challenged hegemonic gender discourses and relations in different contexts. We argue that exploring the gaps in couples' account of women's household decision-making power as well as their perceptions and attitudes towards such roles provides important ground to understanding the inconsistencies in the outcomes of programs targeted at women empowerment and gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development projects play a crucial role in kickstarting and promoting women's empowerment in agriculture. This paper is a conversation starter on how women can be included in the agenda to mechanise agriculture in Africa. It investigates the potential of empowering women as vital actors in the mechanisation value chain, by analysing the perceptions and experiences of the trained women tractor operators. The findings showed that the involvement of women in mechanisation pushed them beyond their comfort zones and offered them a new self-identity with new opportunities previously reserved for men. It also broadened their social capital through the formation of an association for women operators which ensured their representation at a local and national level. For young women, being an operator is the only alternative they have to one day owning a tractor-for-hiring service business because they do not own land or have capital, which is often a precondition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the nexus between old and new commons, anti-politics, and Corporate Social Responsibility measures in the context of on-going land grabbing. Detailed case studies in Ghana, Malawi, Morocco, and Tanzania show that powerful discourses of development, women's empowerment, and wasteland productivity increase serve as anti-politics machines that hide the fact that winners are few and losers many. Despite differential bargaining power mediated by class, age, lineage, or gender, some actors manage to take advantage of the situation: contrary to the often used tragedy metaphor, we argue that we are faced with an open-ended 'drama of the commons' which is still unfolding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) schemes are intended to achieve social and environmental outcomes, although many cases around the world show that CBNRM schemes are achieving more on their environmental goals rather than their social ones. In this paper, we examined the outcomes of Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana using Scheyven's four-dimension framework of empowerment and disempowerment. Examining three case studies, we found that CREMAs emphasize conservation, which may contribute to social and psychological empowerment. However, there is a political and economic empowerment deficit as CREMAs fail to provide economic returns to rural groups or position them to exercise self-determination over their resources. We suggest that approaches strengthening the resource rights may support CBNRMs to realize community empowerment. • CREMAs are failing to empower communities politically and economically to manage and control their resources. • A stronger focus on political and economic rights could position communities to greater assertiveness and CREMA ownership. • The inadequate financial resources and human capacity training make CREMAs unsustainable. • CREMAs, by structure and design, target conservation objectives and minimal social and economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While empowerment of the youth in Ghana could enable them to make a more meaningful contribution to the economy, a myriad of challenges faces the youth during their transition from school into the employment sector and limits the realisation of their full potential. As a result, the recent and significant increase in the size of the youth population in Ghana cannot justifiably be romanticised as an obvious stepping stone towards the realisation of a demographic dividend. In this study, qualitative and quantitative research methods were deployed to carry out a cross-sectional survey that enabled a detailed exploration of the main challenges and opportunities facing the youth in Ghana. Some of the options for enabling greater youth empowerment in the country were also identified. The study established that unemployment, skills limitations, lack of access to finance, and poorly coordinated institutional structures for implementing youth empowerment policies and programmes are major barriers to youth empowerment in Ghana. We conclude that there is a need for more targeted interventions that address these challenges and leverage any evident opportunities available for increased youth empowerment before Ghana can confidently expect to reap a demographic dividend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international development community is focusing on women's empowerment as a key means of achieving high-level development goals. In this context, many development programmes, such as Feed the Future, take a market-based approach to empowerment focusing on access to and control over resources as the primary drivers of change. This kind of empowerment programming, however, often loses sight of power relations which structure access to resources and opportunities. This article, therefore, explores the limitations of economic-based approaches to empowerment that permeate the international development space, and provides strong evidence that a broader multi-dimensional approach is needed to support women's empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates linkages between women’s empowerment in agriculture and the nutritional status of women and children using 2012 baseline data from the Feed the Future population-based survey in northern Ghana. Using a new survey-based index, the women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, we conduct individual-level analyses of nutrition-related indicators including exclusive breastfeeding, children’s dietary diversity score, minimum dietary diversity and minimum acceptable diet, children’s height-for-age, weight-for-height, and weight-for-age z -scores, and women’s dietary diversity score and body mass index. Results suggest that women’s empowerment is more strongly associated with the quality of infant and young child feeding practices and only weakly associated with child nutrition status. Women’s empowerment in credit decisions is positively and significantly correlated with women’s dietary diversity, but not body mass index. This suggests that improved nutritional status is not necessarily correlated with empowerment across all domains, and that these domains may have different impacts on nutrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses women's access and security to land under customary land governance in Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Northern Ghana through document analyses and surveys of 312 land right holders and tenants from 13 communities. The key interest is to investigate the potential for combining customary land practices with land title registration and education in improving women's economic empowerment and social development in the Dorimon and Zukpiri CREMAs. The paper focuses on the motivation of land right holders to grant land rights to women through land use agreements and reasons for terminating such agreements, and provides critical perspectives and data to support the development of tenure security indicators for community protected agro-ecological areas. The study also assesses the position of women in anticipation of forest carbon credits as against their current land holding rights and concludes that despite inherent weaknesses of customary land governance in protected areas, opportunities exist to scale up and expand the formalisation of land use rights through CREMAs, education and the use of Voluntary Savings and Loans Association to enable women gain access to sufficient land. This could significantly help improve women smallholder farmers' tenure security to land, provide livelihood options, enhance food security and ensure their participation and profit from entering into result based ecosystem payment scheme such as REDD+. • Women have poor access to land and land tenure security under customary land governance and state land title registration. • Combining land title registration with customary land governance may provide women with better land access and security. • Community co-creation, education and access to small-scale loans are essential and fosters inclusivity of vulnerable groups. • Participation in REDD+ for women requires access to land and land tenure security and sufficiently large plots of land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]