Differences in culture, climate, gender equality, and education levels are vast between Ghana’s north and south regions. While Ghana is considered a ‘middle-income’ country, this disguises the fact that Ghanaians in the largely rural north fare much worse than those in Ghana’s south on all indicators of human development including life expectancy, expected years of schooling, literacy, and metrics related to gender equality.
Women and children of the north are at the greatest disadvantage by far, with the lowest access to food, healthcare, education, and livelihoods. This makes gender an important dimension of poverty along with the rural/urban divide.
Close to four in 10 children under the age of five are nutritionally deprived in northern Ghana. School infrastructure, teacher capacity, and learning materials are inadequate so the quality of education suffers.
These issues come to a head in the “hunger gap” months: a period between harvests – which is lengthening, due to successive seasons of a failed rainy season – when the food runs out.
During this time, men and youth migrate to cities to find work. Once there, they are frequently locked into menial jobs or, worse still, subject to sexual exploitation or trafficking.
In 2022, CFTC and its donors supported 21,475 children and adults in Ghana:
1.049 people (7 of 10 women) received agricultural inputs
1,897 people received agricultural training
30 VSLAs support 903 people (9 of 10 women)
1,056 children are supported in 4 schools
Inequality continues to be a major challenge in Ghana. …Additional policies targeting poor communities are urgently required to avoid lasting damage to the fabric and stability of Ghanaian society. In a nutshell, Ghana has positioned itself as an oasis of political and economic success in the region. However, for such success to be felt, the government must endeavor to sustain growth and ensure equality.
BTI Transformation Index, 2022
The Challenges
POVERTY & FOOD INSECURITY
In 2022, Ghana’s general inflation rate rose to its highest level in 18 years. Food and fuel costs climbed, driving many more people into poverty, which was already much higher in the northern regions. Poverty has limited farmers’ abilities to buy agricultural inputs and reduced their yields. Many smallholder farmers in the north are unable to meet their families’ basic needs. Food security and child malnutrition is high and climbing with 4 of 10 children nutritionally-deprived in northern Ghana.
LOW QUALITY EDUCATION
Lack of access to schools, teaching materials, and qualified teachers prevents many Ghanaian children from getting a good education. Many adults have little formal education themselves and lack literacy and numeracy skills to help their children or fully develop their own economic potential. Gender inequalities in education persist: when economic resilience is low, boys’ education is favoured over girls’.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Increases in temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and ongoing deforestation and soil erosion continue to hinder Ghanaian smallholders’ agricultural productivity. There is now just one rainy season, often delayed or shorter. Its early end in October 2022 left many crops immature and withered. High levels of poverty among Ghana’s rural farm families prevent many from investing in climate-adaptive agricultural techniques and inputs that would improve their yields.
GENDER INEQUALITY
Women in Ghana generally cannot own land and even if they do have access to land, it is less productive and earns them less income. Women lack access to the credit, technology, inputs, training or markets needed to establish and grow their agricultural businesses. While they comprise 70% of the agricultural labour force, they do not have equal access to the economic benefits of that labour. Entrenched gender bias curtails girls’ access to education and women’s full participation in their own social and economic development.
Current Initiatives
FOOD SECURITY & CLIMATE-ADAPTIVE AGRICULTURE
Hover or tap to find out moreYou can help smallholder farmers increase their use of climate-adaptive agricultural practices by:
- Fostering the use of climate-resilient agricultural training and techniques
- Providing greater access to community / agricultural extension services
- Increasing women’s access to land, credit, markets, inputs that enable them to fully and fairly contribute to agricultural productivity and share in its profits
- Supporting dry season farming, climate-friendly pesticide and fertilizer use, irrigation systems, ploughing and planting strategies, weather forecasting, indigenous seed preservation and use to better adapt to changing weather, maximize growing seasons, and increase yields
WOMEN'S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
Hover or tap to find out moreYou can help women gain business skills and establish good livelihoods by:
- Targeting women’s involvement in agricultural training and increasing their access to land, credit, markets, and inputs that maximize yields and profits
- Encouraging women to join credit and savings co-ops, income-generating groups, farm-based organizations
- Offering business skills training and linking women to markets and value-addition opportunities, including through business incubation hubs
- Encouraging women to take leadership roles in farm-based organizations, as community/agricultural extension agents, and in demonstration farms
- Engaging communities to understand
YOUTH ENGAGEMENT & VOCATIONAL SKILLS TRAINING
Hover or tap to find out moreYou can help youth gain business skills and good livelihoods in their home communities by:
- Providing seed capital
- Offering business skills training
- Supporting mentorship, apprenticeship and occupational skills training
Children's Education
Hover or tap to find out moreYou can support children’s education by investing in programs that:
- Equip schools and school clubs with textbooks, school supplies, classroom and playground equipment
- Train and support teachers, school-management committees and PTAs to support governance and develop action plans that address the barriers to education for girls and boys
- Engage parents, teachers, and other community leaders in raising awareness about the value of girls’ education and the barriers that prevent girls from attending and completing school (SGBV, harmful traditional practices like early marriage)
Learn more
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Stories of Impact: International
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Join a growing community committed to making long-term changeMembers of the leadership
giving circle
giving circle
Food Security
1,049
people received agricultural inputs 7 of 10 women
1,897
people received agricultural training
Livelihoods & Income
19
NEW business ventures established and 22 women trained
30
VSLAs support 903 people; 9 of 10 women
Children's Education
4
primary schools support 1,506 children
37
teachers trained
84
students participate in school clubs
Hearing from communities
About their most significant change
[With the revival of indigenous food crops including Bambara bean and fonio], we are happy [to be able] to provide adequate and nutritious meals for our children but more importantly to revamp our food heritage.
With the weather information, I am now able to make better decisions on the type of crops to plant and the planting time. I am sure of a good harvest and food security for my household this year.
My views have changed. Now, we do everything together. I now involve my wife fully in our farm work and she too supports me. We see ourselves as partners in all family matters and business now and this has raised our farming income.
The team & approach
DELIVERING COMMUNITY-LED RESULTS THROUGH STRONG PARTNERSHIPS AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES IN GHANA
REGIONAL ADVISORY INFORMATION & NETWORK SYSTEMS (RAINS)
RAINS works in Ghana’s Northern Region, supporting productive livelihoods, access to education, and climate-smart agriculture by providing grassroots capacity-building in the sustainable use and management of natural resources.
TRADE AID INTEGRATED (TAI)
TAI seeks to help the productive poor to create and manage viable ventures for sustained poverty reduction and wealth creation. Based in the Upper East Region, TradeAID is involved in promoting sustainable rural livelihoods, helping to strengthen off-farm alternative livelihoods and climate-smart farming activities.
Join us to support long-term change
YOUR COMMITMENT TO CHANGE IN GHANA WILL HELP BUILD A HEALTHY FUTURE FOR CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES
Greater access to education through improved infrastructure, teacher training and recruitment, greater community engagement.
Food security, dietary diversity, and better family nutrition through training on climate-resilient agricultural techniques and alternative livelihoods (especially for women).
Economic resiliency is supported via income generation through both agricultural and alternative means, and community-led programs such as Village Savings & Loans Associations targeted especially to women.
Higher school attendance, retention and graduation rates; equity in good educational outcomes for boys and girls; greater valuing of girls’ education.
