Chapter One
Introduction
- Background of Study
It is generally believed that an increase in the level of knowledge and skills of women in less developed communities will i‘esult in an inci ease in their’ participation in economic, social and political life of the various communities to which they belong. In a published report by the World Bank it is stated “a country with larger gap in school enrolment will have low productivity than another with similar capital and labour resources but a small gender gap in schooling” (World Bank, 1993 P.1).
Dzodzi (200 I ) asserts that the existi ng gender la ici al’cla ics and cndci discrimination affect men and women’s livelihoods and status in society. During the past 15 years, according to the same writer, there has been the need to encourage women to increase their participation in income generating activities to improve their living conditions and the communities in which they live.
The tiaditional tasks associated with providing food for the family such as storage, preservation and preparation, fetching water and ftielwood combined
with child bearing and other household duties by and large remain womCn’s responsibility (Non-Formal Education Exchange-NFEE, 1981).
The report also maintained that in a world that is becoming more and more reliant on money as a medium of exchange, women need access to income for personal sustenance. This is true in most rural societies today where women remain responsible for the education and socialisation of children.
Duncan (1997) presents agriculture as an area of great importance when it comes to female employment because significant numbers of women in the rural areas of Ghana are employed there. However, women face a lot of problems in areas of land ownership, access to credit and extension services. As an area of employment, agricultuie can be seen as an income generating activity which, if developed could serve as a source of economic empowerment alleviating poverty among the vast majority of women in Ghana. Governments all over the world are increasingly finding it difficult to find lasting solutions to the world’s problems (Katsriku and Quaye 1996). This situation, they observed, is worse in Africa and other developing countriCs which are grappling with issues of globalization. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are a response to
situations seeking to lead local people to take initiatives that can better their lives in the face of complex challenges.
In Ghana, over the past 20 years, the state machinery has been so over-stretched that it has become increasingly difficult to solve all problems of government and civil societies at the same time. NGOs have intervened to help manage some of the problems of civil society. A report on the status of women in Ghana (1985- 1994) holds that it was not until the UN Decade for Women that the attention of NGOs and other donor agencies were drawn to issues of gender and development in less developed countries. After 1995, NGOs became more involved in strengthening food and other forms of family survival. The activity of such NGOs with women related activities has concentrated on income generation, functional literacy, numeracy skills and family planning (NCWD 1995).
- Physical characteristics of the Upper-West Region.
The Upper-West Region (UWR) created in 1983, is the youngest of the 10 administrative regions of the Republic of Ghana. According to the living standards indicators of the Ghana Living Standards Survey – GLSS of 1999, the Upper- West Region of Ghana is the least developed among the regions. Wa is the capital town of the Upper- West Region. The UWR is bounded in the north
by Burkina Faso, to the east and south by The Upper-East and Northern Regions respectively as indicated in the Map below (Fig.1.0). It has 5 administrative districts naively, the Wa District, Nadowli District, Jirapa/1 airbtis’ie Distt ict, Lawra District and the Sissala District. (See Map on page 5).