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With increasing human-induced environmental degradation, women's nature-based livelihood activities are threatened. In semi-arid northern Ghana, shea processing (i.e., shea butter, a derivative of shea nut from the shea tree), a vital women-dominated economic activity, is at risk as naturally occurring shea trees continue to decline in numbers and productivity. The decline of the shea tree's number and productivity and the ensuing biodiversity loss have sparked conservation efforts by governments and local communities. This includes community-led conservation models, which have recently gained traction in the Global South. Ghana implemented the Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA)—a community-led conservation model to improve biodiversity and ecosystem services, including shea trees conservation in response to climate change. Research has not explored the impacts of community-led conservation efforts on women's nature-based livelihoods in Ghana. Using a mixed-methods approach involving surveys (n = 517) and focus group discussions (n = 8), this study explored shea productivity outcomes under CREMAs. Findings show that women residing in CREMAs had significantly better shea harvesting outcomes than those outside CREMAs (α = −53.725; P < 0.01). These findings demonstrate the potential for targeted conservation initiatives that are community-led, such as the CREMAs, to improve the conservation of economically significant naturally occurring trees like Shea. With the increasing impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, such models would be instrumental in achieving sustainable development goals like SDG5-gender equality, SDG10-reduced inequalities, SDG13-Climate action, SDG14-life below water, and SDG14-life on land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined the moderating role of loan size on the relationship between collateral characteristics and access to credit by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the agricultural sector of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. In the agricultural sector, MSMEs engaged in crop, livestock, and fish farming constituted the population for the study. The study employed a quantitative research method alongside a causal research design. The Pearson multiple regression was employed to analyze the relationships among the study variables. The study found that collateral costs, registration, and insurance positively and significantly contribute to MSMEs' credit access. Whereas loan size does not moderate the effect of collateral cost on farmers' credit access, it negatively and significantly moderates the effect of collateral registration and insurance on credit access. Furthermore, loan size positively and significantly moderates the effect of collateral age on farmers' access to credit. The study was restricted to MSMEs in crop, livestock, and fish farming in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, thus making generalization to the country and beyond difficult. This study is important for decision-making concerning how farmers could take advantage of their collateral to secure appreciable loans in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. No empirical study has examined the moderating role of loan size on the relationship between collateral characteristics and credit access, aside from the fact that empirical studies dominate other sectors other than the agricultural sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credit has been identified as an essential tool to improve poor households' livelihood. Therefore, for rural farm households to improve their welfare and invest in productive agriculture activity, access to credit must be promoted. This paper examines how credit accessibility influences rural farm households' farmland abandonment reduction in Ghana. Using survey data collected from four regions in Ghana, the endogenous switching regression (ESR) model, and the problem confronting index (PCI) model were employed in the estimation. The findings revealed that households with access to credit are more likely to not abandon their farmland than a random farmer from the sample. Also, different household groups showed a heterogeneous impact of credit on farmland abandonment. Our findings provide policy implications to reduce farmland abandonment. For example, the negative credit accessibility impact on farmland abandonment implies that government and policymakers should target policies (e.g., improving the rural financial market) that will motivate farmers to reduce farmland abandonment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of savings mobilization on access to credit among smallholder farmers' in the Birim central municipality of Ghana. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional primary data set was used to estimate the factors influencing smallholder farmers' access to credit and size of loan to be borrowed using the IV-Probit and IV-Tobit model. Findings: The results of the study revealed that savings mobilization has a positive significant impact on access to credit and the total amount of credit one can borrow as well. Other control variables such as transaction cost and farm size depicted a negative significant impact on access to credit. Land ownership, member of an association, household size, years of farming experience and education also showed a positive significant impact on access to credit. Research limitations/implications: The paper only examined the savings effect on credit accessibility among smallholder farmers in one of the municipality's in the Eastern region of Ghana. Future research should consider all or many municipality for an informed generalization of findings. Practical implications: This paper provides evidence that smallholder farmers knowledge on the financial market is poor and it would require the policymakers or NGOs to organize financial management training programs so that the farmers high ignorance of the financial market will significantly reduce. Originality/value: Although existing studies have examined smallholder farmers' access to credit, the unique contribution of this paper is the analysis of the impact of saving mobilization on credit accessibility in Ghana, a major access to credit determinant in the financial market. In addition, those researchers who factored in savings as an access to credit determinant did not also consider the casual relationship between these two variables, thus, the present of endogeneity of which this paper does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]