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Infrastructure has contributed to eradicating poverty and improving the livelihood of people. In Sub-Saharan Africa, active transport infrastructure is less, poor, or lacking, which has become one source of the decline in cycling and efficiency in walking. This study sought to investigate the types of infrastructure or routes that active transport users are exposed to, determine their usage magnitude and solicit views regarding them through questionnaire surveys and screen-line counts in two major cities in Ghana. Active transport respondents who comprised of pedestrians and a few cyclists identified themselves with these infrastructures and route use frequently: streets, sidewalks, cycle lanes, unpaved footpaths, and 'lungulungus'. Street and 'lungulungus' were the most used infrastructure or route choices by all age, gender, and occupation groups in both study locations at Ayawaso East Municipal Assembly and Tamale Metropolitan Assembly. The respondents chose to use these two mainly because they were direct, cohesive and safe. The fact that people used 'lungulungus' more than the provided infrastructures suggests poor planning of the built environment and inadequate dedicated infrastructure. This calls for a review of existing dedicated infrastructure and the provision of infrastructure that addresses the needs of pedestrians and cyclists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Homelessness among people with mental illness has grown to become a common phenomenon in many developed and developing countries. Just like in any other country, the living conditions of homeless people with mental illness in Ghana are unwholesome. Despite the increased population of these vulnerable individuals on the streets, not much is known about the perspectives of the general public towards this phenomenon in Ghana. Aim: This research was conducted to explore the perspectives of community members on homeless people with mental illness. The main study objectives were (a) to find out the impacts of the presence of persons with mental illness on the streets and (b) to ascertain the reasons accounting for homelessness among persons with mental illness. Method: Utilizing a qualitative research design, twenty community members were sampled from selected suburbs in Nsawam and interviewed with the use of a semi-structured interview guide. The audio data gathered from the interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. Results: Majority of the participants asserted that homeless people with mental illness had no access to good food, shelter, and health care. They further stated that some homeless people with mental illness perpetrated physical and sexual violence against the residents. Moreover, the participants believed that persons with mental illness remained on the streets due to neglect by their family members, and limited access to psychiatric services. Conclusion: This paper concludes by recommending to government to make mental health services accessible and affordable to homeless persons with mental illness nationwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the social significance of the street to young men through a case study of their street meeting places, ‘the bases’ in Accra, Ghana. Drawing on field research in a suburb of Accra, the paper explores how such meeting places are produced, claimed and defended. The aim is to contribute to discussions of the relationship between the marginalization of young men in Africa, the appropriation of street space and the production of youth identities. The article illuminates how bases are produced in an urban landscape characterized by rapid change, in which young men are excluded from meaningful work and influence, and tend to be represented as a problem. Describing how these meeting places are interpreted both from the outside and from within, the article illustrates the heterogeneous character of such places and the multiple meanings ascribed to them. While hordes of young men hanging out on the street tend to be viewed by the surrounding world as either potentially dangerous or as a sign of marginalization and immobility, the paper stresses that for the young men themselves, these places are also full of motion and serve to orient their lives socially and materially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines issues on transportation development in Ghana. Gould (1960) and Taaffe, Morril and Gould (1963) proposed several years ago an ideal model of transportation development in Ghana. According to these authors, transportation development in Ghana would occur in six linear phases. The six phases are (1) scattered ports, (2) penetration lines and port concentration, (3) development of feeders, (4) beginnings of interconnection, (5) complete interconnection and (6) emergence of high priority main streets. While the model provides a useful theoretical explanation of transportation development in developing countries, the attainment of the six stages has not occurred in Ghana. Several factors have inhibited transportation development in Ghana. These factors and the relevance of Gould's model to contemporary transportation issues in Ghana are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Road networks are by far the largest mobility infrastructure in Sub-Sahara Africa, and are key to providing access to economic and social opportunities. Yet the majority of road networks in Ghana and other countries in Sub-Sahara Africa are not geographically referenced, to facilitate their uses for road maintenance and management, transport planning, emergency services, disaster cases, logistics, tourism and other location based services. Consequently, this study takes advantage of paratransit service and the location of landmarks to provide location addressing of road networks in Ghana. The paratransit service, popularly known as Trotro in Ghana is a local transit system that uses an automobile to move people and goods along a prescribed travel route on a road network, with locally known stops where people get on and off the vehicle. The Trotro service is popular in Ghana, yet there is no critical investigation demonstrating its spatial coverage, relevance as a credible location addressing for road networks, or as a comprehensive location data for location based services. This study provides evidence for this case, and investigates the spatial coverage of road networks used by the Trotro vehicles, and the mapping of their service stops together with landmarks in the Asokore Mampong Municipality (AMM) of Ashanti region in Ghana. It was found that the location data from both Trotro service and landmarks covered about 86% of the entire road network in AMM; providing a large coverage of the road network and greater geographic detail. A service area estimation undertaken using the generated location data shows a high geographic accessibility, with travel distances as low as 160 m from any location to the nearest Trotro service or landmark covering about 80% of the road networks. These results show the capability of the generated location data to tackle the problem of spatially unreferenced road networks, and to significantly improve their effective uses. The popularity of paratransit in Sub-Sahara Africa means that this study can be adapted to other countries where the majority of the road networks are not spatially referenced. • Characterized the spatial coverage of roads used by paratransit and key landmarks. • Location data from paratransit and key landmarks have high coverage and detail. • Ensuing data has high spatial accessibility based on service area estimation. • Paratransit and key landmarks provide credible location data for road networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]