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IFPRI1; CRP2; Open Access; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; SAM; Nexus; Nexus SAMs, DSGD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), The Nexus Project is a collaboration between IFPRI and its partners, including national statistical agencies and research institutions. Our aim is to improve the quality of social accounting matrices (SAMs) used for computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling. The Nexus Project develops toolkits and establishes common data standards, procedures, and classification systems for constructing and updating national SAMs. The 2015 Ghana SAM follows the Standard Nexus Structure. The open access version of the Ghana SAM separates domestic production into 42 activities. Factors are disaggregated into labor, agricultural land, and capital. Labor is further disaggregated across three education categories. Representative households are disaggregated by rural and urban areas and by per capita expenditure quintile. The remaining accounts include enterprises, government, taxes, savings-and-investment, and the rest of the word. This dataset can be downloaded from https://www2.statsghana.gov.gh/nada/index.php/catalog/95 .

The present study aims at comparing in-vitro scavenging activities of methanol extract and fractions of Lophira lanceolata leaves, and also to study the oral acute toxicity of the ethyl acetate fraction.Petroleum ether, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, butanol and water fractions were prepared from the methanol extract of the plant. The scavenging activity of DPPH (2, 2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), the total phenolic (TPC) and total flavonoid (TFC) contents of the extract and fractions were determined by spectrophotometrical methods using gallic acid (GA) and quercetin (Qu) as reference antioxidant. The fifty percent inhibitory concentration (IC50), fifty percent effective concentration (EC50) and the antiradical power (ARP) were determined for all extract and fractions. An acute toxicity study using a single oral dose of 5000 mg/kg of the ethyl acetate fraction of the plant was conducted in female Albino rats following the OECD (420) Guidelines. Blood samples were collected for hematological and biochemical analysis. Histopathological examinations of the heart, kidney and liver were performed.The results showed that the ethyl acetate fraction of L. lanceolata had the highest free radical scavenging activity of DPPH (IC50=1,43; EC50= 0.07 and ARP = 14,28) and also contain the highest amount of total phenols (14,4±0,02 mg of GA equivalent/g of plant fraction) and total flavonoids (93,3±0,04 mg of Qu equivalent/g of plant fraction) as compared to other fractions and ascorbic acid (IC50=5,82; EC50= 3.44; ARP=3,44). The hematological parameters and the lipid profile didn’t show any major change compared to the control group. However, a significant increase of aspartate aminotransferase (AST, p<0.001) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT, p<0.001) showed that the ethyl acetate fraction of the methanol extract of L. lanceolata leaves might not totally be safe for consumption, in the conditions of our experiment.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; CRP4; Stories of Change in Nutrition; Transform Nutrition West Africa; UNFSS, PHND; A4NH, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Over the past decade, Ghana has achieved significant reductions in hunger and improvement in nutrition of women and children. Undernourishment rate (Food Balance Sheet indicator) has declined and remained below 5% over the past decade. 1 Young child growth has improved as indicated by reduced stunting (low height-for-age), from 28% in 2008 to 19% in 2014; underweight, from 14% in 2008 to 11% in 2014; and wasting- from 8.5% in 2008 to 5% in 2014.2 However, in the context of increasing urbanization and income growth, challenges of urban food and nutrition insecurity and overnutrition have begun to arise. Understanding the drivers of these positive changes will provide useful lessons for future actions for food and nutrition security. While consideration of emergent problems related to urbanization and overnutrition is also necessary. This requires broad consideration of the actions and occurrences that may have contributed in the past, and how Ghana’s changing food system can be leveraged for future progress. To achieve these objectives, two new research initiatives have commenced in Ghana. These are ‘Stories of Change in Nutrition in Ghana’, and ‘Leveraging Food Systems for Improved Nutrition in Ghana’. Both have been initiated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). This report provides a summary of a consultative stakeholder meeting held jointly by the two initiatives on July 3, 2018 in Accra, to engage key stakeholders just as the two initiatives are commencing activities in Ghana. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce participants to the research plans and activities and to present preliminary findings. The meeting also was an opportunity to seek stakeholder input on: a) the actors, actions, and policy processes that have led to improvements in key nutrition problems in the past ; and b) the opportunities for leveraging a changing food system for continued progress on nutrition. Finally, the meeting also sought to learn from stakeholder

The main motivation for the development of various strategies to represent written text in a concise way among mobile phone users all over the world is the need to communicate full messages in abridged forms in order to save time, energy and money. These alternative forms of words and phrases are especially employed by the youth. In this paper, the innovative adaptation of global SMS texting trends in the form of intricate abbreviation and contraction of words and phrases in Kiswahili in Tanzania is examined and compared with trends in SMS texting language in English in Ghana. Using empirical data made up of SMS texts from students of the University of Dar es Salaam and University of Ghana, localized as well as convergent and divergent trends and the socio-pragmatic motivations of the phenomena are analysed and discussed.

The main motivation for the development of various strategies to represent written text in a concise way among mobile phone users all over the world is the need to communicate full messages in abridged forms in order to save time, energy and money. These alternative forms of words and phrases are especially employed by the youth. In this paper, the innovative adaptation of global SMS texting trends in the form of intricate abbreviation and contraction of words and phrases in Kiswahili in Tanzania is examined and compared with trends in SMS texting language in English in Ghana. Using empirical data made up of SMS texts from students of the University of Dar es Salaam and University of Ghana, localized as well as convergent and divergent trends and the socio-pragmatic motivations of the phenomena are analysed and discussed.

Settling fluxes and sediment accumulation rates in coastal Tema Harbour (Ghana) were investigated by the combined analyses of results in sediment traps and sediment cores. Sediment traps were deployed at 5 stations within the Tema Harbour at two sampling depths and were retrieved every two weeks till the end of 12 weeks to estimate the Settling Fluxes (SFs). Four sediment cores from the harbour were analysed for their radioactivity (7Be, 234Th, 210Pb, 212Pb, 226Ra, 40K and 137Cs) profiles to quantify Sediment Accumulation Rates (SARs). The sediment cores exhibited variable bulk density profiles, indicating highly dynamic and non-steady sedimentation conditions. 7Be-derived gross-estimates of very recent SARs using the constant flux-constant sedimentation (CF-CS) model were in the range of 2.5–9.0 g·cm− 2·y− 1. These values were much lower than the estimated average SFs (15.2–53.8 g·cm− 2·y− 1), indicating sediment resuspension plays an important role. On a decadal time scale, conventional 210Pb sediment dating models did not allow any estimation of SARs in the Tema Harbour. Thus, the 210Pb-based TERESA model was applied to depict a reliable scenario for sedimentation with time-averaged SARs in the range of 1.4–3.0 g·cm− 2·y− 1 and fluxes of matter contributed by the marine inflow and local sources. Sediment accretion rates of 1.7–3 cm·y− 1 were also inferred, which may pose a moderate problem of sustainability for the Tema Harbour. This study reveals how the geochemical behaviour of different radionuclides with Gamma spectrometry in the marine environment can be used to obtain reliable information on the complex dynamics of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM), even in a very disturbed and anthropic environment as a coastal harbour area where (1) conventional 210Pb-based dating methods fail and (2) the use of sediment traps and 234Th and 7Be profiles in sediment cores show serious constraints.