Oxfam's work in Ghana in depth

Ghana has recorded tremendous progress in development and poverty reduction in the last two decades, and has a chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals on income poverty reduction and hunger. However, this progress masks considerable inequity, particularly between people living in southern and northern Ghana, and some new policies risk entrenching inequality.

Oxfam's new Ghana programme

Oxfam first began working in Ghana in the West Mamprusi District in 1986 to tackle chronic water and sanitation issues that affected thousands of people in the Kubori area. Over 15 years Oxfam provided basic services and facilities including water and sanitation, micro finance, livelihoods, education, health and hygiene education as well as humanitarian relief for farm families. Oxfam has since grown to support many poor men and women across the country, with a particular focus on the three northern regions, led from a national office in Accra.

Oxfam has restructured its programme in Ghana to support efforts of national civil society organisations to address the incidence of poverty in the northern part of the country and to contribute to the growing importance of Ghana’s political, social and economic development in Africa. In this new programme, Oxfam has become a key partner in bringing people and organisations together to engage in the governance processes, particularly poor men and women engaged in rural agriculture and healthcare.

How Oxfam is helping

Since 2009, our programme in Ghana has focused on sustainable agricultural livelihoods and free universal quality health care.

Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: building incomes, climate change impact mitigation, independence and safety nets of those working in agriculture.

Our work on supporting agriculture advocacy includes supporting networks and movements of farmers, particularly in the north, to engage with district, national and regional policy-making and spending decisions.

We work with small-scale farmers and producers to establish strong and credible platforms and use their collective voice to lobby and advocate decision makers to improve policies and practices in agricultural sector in the country.

Supporting Shea producers

This is an advocacy project, implemented in partnership with five national partners across the three northern regions of Ghana. We support the farmers’ platforms, and agricultural organisations from the three northern regions who are involved in the Shea industry, to increase their voice in bringing about more favourable policies and market chains for Shea pickers and producers. The farmer’s platforms and its members are actively and effectively engaging in policy processes that will lead to the government meeting its promises on agriculture, financial and technical investment.

For the sustainability of the project, Oxfam works in partnership with the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) and SEND (Social Enterprise Development) Ghana are engaging in multi-stakeholder processes to establish a network of Shea butter producers, pickers, private sector, government and civil society that will champion learning and sharing and engagement at national level to influence policies and investments for the development of the shea sector in the country.

The Savannah Accelerated Development Initiative

Oxfam is supporting organisations that are developing civil society monitoring of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA is a Government of Ghana initiative aimed at addressing the development imbalance between the north and south of Ghana and also within the north of Ghana), to ensure the agriculture and health components of this new initiative are contributing to other areas of investment set out within the agriculture policy and is meeting the farmers’ needs in northern Ghana. The project is facilitating actions to build credible civil society to influence policy debates and active citizen engagement in the SADA processes including monitoring government budget allocations and disbursements.

Food and Agricultural Recovery Management Plus

This project is in collaboration with CARE International in Ghana and funded by the European Commission. It aims to improve the food security situation of 9,000 food insecure households in 200 poor communities across five districts in Northern Ghana. The project works with five national partners, farmers, community leaders, government, private sector and parliament on policy reforms for increased investment and support to food insecure areas and households.

The project involves:

• Direct intervention support focused on food for work for food insecure households (delivered by CARE International and five national partners)
• An advocacy and campaign around facilitating the engagement of small-scale farmers and vulnerable households with agric and food security governance processes in Ghana.

Climate change adaptation

We have integrated climate change adaptation in our work in Ghana. We want to build knowledge and understanding of climate change among small-scale farmers and civil society and its impact on agriculture and food security. This facilitates early engagement of small-scale farmers and civil society organisations to consider climate change issues in their work, and as an opportunity to further develop a pro-poor adaptation programme by the Ghanaian government with strong civil society participation.

Essential services advocacy: building equitable, universal access to public services, with a focus on healthcare

In Ghana, the majority of poor people are excluded from the National Health Insurance System and are hence unable to benefit from its limited public health care package. Only 29 per cent of the poorest in the population are enrolled in the system compared to 64 per cent of the richest.

To fill this gap, we are collaborating with partners working on monitoring investment and delivery by the state and private sector on essential services, particularly health. Together with our partners, we are pointing out the inequities and unfairness of the present system where the tax paid by the whole population caters for a scheme accessed by less than 40 per cent of the population.  

With our partners, we are producing a paper that will take advantage of the new, time-bound opportunity, which exists currently to influence the review of Ghana’s health system to have free universal access to basic healthcare at the point of delivery.

People

Jennifer is in her early 30’s.  She has 2 children: a daughter who is 6 and a son who is 2 years old.  She lives in Ashogman, a suburb of Accra.  Jennifer is 8 months pregnant.  In Accra, most women sell fruit on the street or fry fish.  Their average daily earning is 4.5 cedis (£1.80).

“We have many problems in Ghana.  There is no work.  I fry fish for a living.  My husband is a driver but has no car at the moment.  I worry about not having money.  I buy food and there is nothing left.  For my first 2 births I said at home.  I couldn’t afford to come to the hospital. I had no nurse and no midwife at my births.  We were too poor to pay.  I am very happy to give birth in the hospital this time.  I used to have health insurance, but it expired.  It cost me 45 cedis (£18) to renew the insurance for two children, and me but I didn’t.  It was too much money.  Now, I must pay for healthcare if my children get sick.  If my daughter gets sick, I can’t afford to bring her to hospital.  She could die.”

 

Last updated: August 2010