Theses
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A long essay or dissertation or thesis involving personal research, written by postgraduates of University of Ghana for a university degree.
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Item Institutions and African Economic Development(Working Paper, 2022) Fosu, A.K.In light of the increasing importance of institutions in economic development and Africa’s desire to catch up, the present paper provides an account of this crucial subject, ‘Institutions and African Economic Development. First, adopting the usual definition of ‘institutions’ as ‘rules of the game’, the paper shows that improvements in economic institutions, such as economic freedom, had begun by the early 1990s, and accelerated about the mid-1990s, consistent with observed improvements in economic and development outcomes. Also improved are measures of political institutions: an index of electoral competitiveness, constraint on the executive branch of government, and polity 2 as an indicator of the level of democracy, beginning in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Second, based primarily on a review of the extant literature, the paper observes that these improvements in the measures of economic and political institutions are positively associated with the increasing economic development in Africa. Third, indicators of institutional instability, measured by the frequency of civil wars and the incidence of coups d’etat, have been diminishing since the early 1990s, with implications for improved growth and human development. Fourth, some evidence is provided in support of the notion that African countries with better performance on institutional quality during the period of growth resurgence have also exhibited greater progress in poverty reduction. Finally, the paper concludes by flagging the potential risk of African countries backtracking on their respective trajectories toward achieving the democratic consolidation required to sustain the gains in growth and development.Item Deliberation for Development: Ghana ’s First Deliberative Poll(Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 2019) Chirawurah, D.; Bawah, A.; Fishkin, J.; et al.This article poses the problem of public consultation in developing countries and applies a solution in Ghana as a test case. It describes the theoretical rationale for deliberative consultation with random samples, describes specific criteria for success, and then assesses an application under the challenging conditions of a developing country. It builds on notions of “deliberative democracy,” and shows how they can be practically realized in an African context through “Deliberative Polling” (DP). The challenge is that the context is one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in Africa. Rather than consulting just stakeholders, or self-selected populations, or using conventional surveys, DP’s have the advantage of consulting random samples with deliberation in depth in confidential surveys so that the opinion changes can be evaluated at the individual level, free of social pressures for consensus. Is this practical in this context? A DP was conducted in Tamale, Ghana on issues of water, sanitation, hygiene, and food security. Criteria for success for DPs that have been applied in highly developed countries are discussed and then applied in Ghana under challenging conditions.Item Towards Social Justice Consciousness in Ghana’s Higher Education: Revisiting the Thoughts of Nkrumah and Nyerere(Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, 2021) Amuzu, D.This article revisits the thoughts of Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere on decolonizing higher education in Africa. Their critique of colonial higher education centers on the notion that it was designed to promote the economic aspirations of the colonial metropolis, making it socially unjust, culturally irrelevant, and developmentally inapt. For redemption, African universities should align with the aspirations of their societies and promote African cultural consciousness. Their value-laden thoughts are classified into themes, discussed, and consequently recommended as ideas for policy considerations because they are yet to firmly influence Ghana’s higher education policy framework despite their relevance. The themes are: liberating the African mind; nurturing African character; owning the African narrative; and the essence of knowledge.Item What Is Africa to Me? or Maryse Condé’s Love-Hate Relationship with “Ancestral Lands” Struggling with Budding Independence(Cahiers d’études africaines, 2021) Asaah, A.H.The involvement of French-speaking Caribbean intellectuals in the socio political development of their ancestral continent, Africa, has taken diverse literary forms, key among which are René Maran’s novel Batouala (1921), Frantz Fanon’s political testimony Les damnés de la terre (2004 [1961]), Aimé Césaire’s play Une saison au Congo (1966), Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s novel Juletane (1982), and Raoul Peck’s film Sometimes in April (2005). While dialoguing with these authors/works, Maryse Condé’s autobiography, La vie sans fards (2012)/What Is Africa to Me? (2017), prolongs this affiliation with the account of her relocation to four West African postcolonies, namely the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal between 1959 and 1970, with a year’s break in the uk.Item A Review Of Food-Based Dietary Guidelines In Africa: Opportunities To Enhance The Healthiness And Environmental Sustainability Of Population Diets(African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, 2022) Ainuson-Quampah, J.; Aryeetey, R.; Amuna, N.N.; Holdsworth, M.Food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) are important tools for promoting healthy eating and nutrition education at the population level. Currently, more than 100 countries worldwide have developed FBDGs with the majority of existing FBDGs in high-income countries. However, there are a few countries in Africa which have developed FBDGs. This review describes and compares the characteristics of existing FBDGs in Africa. Data were extracted from all existing FBDGs from African countries which have been archived in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) online repository of FBDGs. In addition, supporting documentation from other sources linked to the identified FBDGs was also reviewed. Extracted data were coded and synthesized to describe the purpose of the FBDGs, the process for developing the FBDGs, and how healthy diets were expressed in the FBDGs. In addition, the FBDGs were examined for content on considerations for planetary health, and non-dietary recommendations. A checklist was used to extract the evidence in the identified documents. Of the 47 African countries in the WHO Africa region, only eight FBDGs were identified from seven countries. South Africa had two FBDGs (including an FBDG for young children). Multi-disciplinary technical working groups were convened to develop the majority of the FBDGs. The working groups utilized scientific evidence on diet-related diseases and nutrient requirements as a basis for recommendations. All the FBDGs were intended as a tool for promoting healthy diets among the lay population. The FBDGs that were reviewed included between six and sixteen dietary messages. Diet diversification was promoted as the most common recommendation across African country FBDGs. The recommendations often promoted consumption of four to six food groups communicated using text as well as images (food guide). Local availability and cultural acceptability were important values promoted as part of an optimal diet in some of the countries. However, none of the recommendations addressed environmental sustainability. Apart from South Africa, none of the FBDGs had been evaluated or revised. Across Africa, there is a need for increased focus on developing new FBDGs or revising existing ones as a tool for meeting the dietary information needs of populations at risk of malnutrition in all its forms.Item Drivers of income inequality in Africa: Does institutional quality matter?(African Development Review, 2020) Kunawotor, M.E.; Bokpin, G.A.; Barnor, C.This paper examines the role institutional quality plays among the empirical drivers of income inequality in Africa. Using a dynamic two‐step difference GMM with robust standard errors over the period 1990–2017, we find no statistically significant effect of institutions in general, on income inequality. However, we find that institutional quality indicators such as control of corruption and the strict enforcement of the rule of law significantly reduce income inequality. We also find no statistically significant effects of the other institutional quality indicators such as government effectiveness, voice and accountability, regulatory quality, and political stability on income inequality in our sample. We suggest that more premium be placed on corruption control and the stringent adherence to the rule of law in ensuring equitable distribution of income in Africa. Furthermore, we re‐echo suggestions that promote institutional development in Africa as institutions in general remain very weak.Item African Women, Technology and ICTs(The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies, 2019) Frimpong Kwapong, O.A.T.Technology has much to offer women in their public and private lives. In view of this, the Strategic Development Goal (SDG) 5b seeks to utilize enabling technology, particularly information and communications technology, to empower women. Through a desk review, this chapter looked at the position of African women in the development, deployment, and utilization of technology in the broad sense with a special focus on information and communication technology. Factors that inhibit women’s full utilization of technology and some policy directives have also been enumerated in the chapter. Various interventions in the area of women and technologies have yielded results. African women are not only users of technology but also breaking through as developers in the technology space. Despite infrastructural and socio-economic challenges, women in Africa are capable of harnessing the full potential of technology to improve their lives. They should therefore be perceived as such and be supported accordingly.Item Assessing the Scope of Impact, Impact Measures and Factors Influencing Social Enterprise Impact Measure Selection across Africa(Journal of Advocacy, Research and Education, 2020) Adomdza, G.K.; Asiedu, M.; Lartey, A.S.D.; Lawal, A.B.Social enterprises have been identified as one of the ways of tackling some of the most challenging social problems around the globe. Despite, being touted as indispensable to the developmental agenda of most developing economies, especially across Africa, very little effort has been made to understand the scope of impact and impact assessment measures adopted to evaluate the activities in the space in the continent. The current study is an inquiry into the mechanisms adopted by SEs in their impact assessments within Africa. Additionally, the research focuses on the scope of the impact of SEs across the continent. The results revealed an imbalance in the use of the two categories of impact measures; “individual-based impact measures” and “non-financial impact measures”. SEs have relied more on “what we do” and numbers to justify their impact in several parts of the continent. Additionally, the research also revealed that some of the impact areas of SEs included poverty and inequality; education and technology; entertainment; child empowerment; girl and women empowerment; youth empowerment; and social welfare and disability. The research recommends that SEs should endeavor to measure their impact from a comprehensive perspective, to align their activities and measures to the broader national and/or global agenda.Item Experiences of COVID-19 in Africa(Nature Human Behaviour, 2021) Asuming, P.O.Timely information for understanding the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 in low-income countries is very limited. A recent paper by Josephson, Kilic, and Michler reveals large and disproportionate socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic and provides useful insights to inform an appropriate policy response.Item Exploring Africa’s Agency in International Politics(Africa Spectrum, 2021) Coffie, A.; Tiky, L.A protracted conventional knowledge within mainstream International Relations (IR) has been that African agents (states, organizations, and diplomats) are consumers of international norms and practices designed in the affluent countries of the Global North. Papers in this special issue present a challenge to this view; they discuss the active role and the influence of African actors in international politics and renew a call for the development of IR theories, concepts, and methods that reflect Global Southern and African experiences, ideas, institutions, actors, and processes.