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Item 2024 Symposium on African Digital Humanities: Digital Humanities, African Stories, and Agency(2024-02-15) Darkwah, A.; Ocloo, P.E.D.; Opoku-Agyemang, K.; Rosenblum, B.; Yeku, J.The symposium particularly welcomes graduate students and early-career faculty interested in digital humanities and will provide stipends for graduate students in the region to attend. The 2024 symposium seeks to stimulate a dialogue that addresses the intersections of the digital humanities and African stories and agency. We will explore digital storytelling and its connections to African narratives, the extractive politics of platform, AI and African agency, as well as diverse approaches and issues related to building an inclusive digital cultural record for local and global communities.Item The Ghana Energy Sector: Current Challenges and Opportunities and Job Prospects.(University of Ghana, 2020-03-17) Essandoh-Yeddu, J.The development of a country is to a large extent dependent on the optimal development and utilization of its energy resources and the provision of energy services in a reliable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner. Recognizing the importance of energy to national development, Past and present governments have been struggling with establishing the most optimal administrative infrastructure both soft and hard to execute and implement policies to achieve such an energy vision. The Energy Sector since its formal establishment has come up with a number of policies to promote the sector as well as addressing the challenges. These include the Power Sector Reform in the 1990s to help attract private investment into the power subsector value chain; the 2001 Energy Policy which focused on poverty alleviation and economic growth; and the 2010 Energy Policy necessitated largely by the discovery of oil in substantial commercial quantities in 2007 and which provided the initial framework for the development and utilization of indigenous oil and gas resources in the country. There have been significant changes in the national and global energy landscape. The country had also undergone years of frequent power outages and planned power rationing across the country in the past, and the severest and longest occurred from 2013-2015, leading to reduced workforce productivity, unreliable supply of electricity, relatively high electricity tariff compared to the last decade culminating in the high cost of doing business, etc. These have compelled recent and present governments to come up with restructuring of the sector on a number of occasions. The presentation is a discourse on the entire Energy Sector and the challenges since the immediate colonial era to what prevails today. It will also touch on the potential opportunities for the country and job prospects in the sector.Item Rainfall Insurance, Agricultural extension, Information asymmetry, and Small-holder farmer adoption practices in the Northern Region of Ghana(University of Ghana, 2020-03-20) Udry, C.We report the results of a 4-year RCT in the former Northern Region that provided rainfall index insurance, community-based agricultural extension services, improved access to agricultural input markets, and information on crop prices and short-run weather forecasts to small-scale farmers. We show that the insurance and extension treatments led farmers to adopt recommended agricultural practices and increase the use of fertilizer inputs. However, there is little evidence that these changes improved farmer outcomes, on average. Using machine-learning techniques, we show that there is evidence that treatment effects are heterogeneous, strongly depending upon the realizations of rainfall and temperature.Item VISITORS WITHOUT BORDERS? Concords and Discords among National Communities in the Visitors’ Books(University of Ghana, 2020-03-12) Akpabli, K.Since the Government of Ghana declared 2019 as the Year of Return, visitations to the former slave dungeons of Cape Coast and Elmina have significantly increased. As they trudge through the doors and corridors of these monuments of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, visitors are taken through the harrowing experiences - which enslaved Africans suffered centuries ago before they were shipped to the various countries mainly in the New World. Together, these two sites have a long and varied history, and although they are places of incontestable human tragedy, they are equally spaces of contention. This paper explores how visitors to Cape Coast and Elmina castles coalesce or disagree on issues raised in the visitors’ books. Using contextual analysis, the research pays attention to, and attempts to draw the line between nationality and positionality. How, for example, does nationality affect observation, opinion or themes expressed? The paper contextually analyses a two month-long collation of visitors’ impressions, gathered around the period of the celebration - in Cape Coast - of PANAFEST/Emancipation Day which also marked 400 years of the start of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Data gathered from the two monuments tend to support the position of scholarship on visitor studies, which states that as they engage in the collaborative enterprise of reading and logging their own comments, visitors contribute to the building of communities around specific subject matters raised on the pages. Though some research have been conducted on the representation of both castles, not much has been done on visitor comment and citizenship. While paying close attention to how comments are framed, the research attempts to piece together correlations between the issues visitors inscribe vis-a-vis the politics of their national identities. Recognising that over their centuries-long history, the two monuments have been built and owned by at least, five different nations, the study deconstructs their respective visitors’ books as inter-cultural sounding boards of consensus and contention.Item Arabic Manuscripts Production in Ghana: A Close Study of Jumcat's al-lāmiyyat al-Ṣughrā(University of Ghana, 2020-03-05) Hafiz, M.The study contributes to an ongoing discussion on the need to engage with the content of the Arabic and Ajami manuscripts deposited in archival centers across West Africa. Using one of the primary manuscripts from the Arabic and Ajami collection of the Institute of African Studies in the University of Ghana, the study vividly describes three core iterant processes that recur in manuscripts writing in Ghana and in West Africa. These processes comprise the occasions that necessitate the production of Arabic and Ajami manuscripts, the choice of appropriate titles and thematic interconnectedness of various Arabic manuscripts. The essence of the study is to demonstrate how these three processes have been catered for in the selected manuscript relative to a few manuscripts from the IAS collections. To contextualize the discussion, the paper began with an overview of Arabic manuscripts production in Ghana, accompanied by a brief description of the manuscript under study. The study revealed that akin to several Arabic manuscripts from the IAS collections, the occasion that necessitated the manuscript under consideration has been elaborated in a prelude. Indeed, for emphasis, the purpose of writing the manuscript has also been explicitly stated in the third lines of the poem. The two-worded title of the manuscript (al-lāmiyyat al-ṣughra) although catchy, barely reflects the content. Nonetheless, the manuscript share a close thematic affinity with a few manuscripts from the IAS collection and many others from West Africa. Notwithstanding, it is unique in many respects. It qualifies as a funeral dirge, a genealogy and obituary poem apiece. Above all, it contains invaluable information for historical and anthropological enquiriesItem Women’s post-abortion contraceptive use: are predictors the same for immediate and future use?(University of Ghana, 2020-03-05) Kayi, E.; Biney, A.This study sought to identify the socio-demographic, reproductive, partner-related and facility-level characteristics which are associated with immediate and subsequent uptake of post-abortion contraception. The study used the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey (GMHS) data which comprised 1,383 women who had an abortion within the five years preceding the survey. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed to examine associations between the predictor variables and outcome variables, both immediate and subsequent contraceptive use. The findings indicate that age, type of place of residence, and health provider’s pre- or post-abortion family planning counselling were significantly associated with both immediate and subsequent use of modern contraception. Compared to women had induced abortion service provision from health professionals, women who had their abortion from non-health professionals were twice as likely to use contraception immediately post-abortion. Among subsequent contraception users, the predictors included marital status, contraceptive use at index pregnancy, and place where abortion was performed. Partner-related characteristics were not significantly associated with both immediate and subsequent contraceptive use. The study findings are relevant and informative for designing target interventions to facilitate contraception use among young post-abortion women. Expanding access to and availability of post-abortion family planning counselling and services, in addition to the availability of a variety of modern contraceptives, is key to increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate among post-abortion womenItem The Role of Mobile Phones in the Social Lives of Informal Micro-Women Traders in Accra(University of Ghana, 2019-10-17) Ussher, Y.This article explores the functional role of mobile phones in livelihood development of Ghanaian women in the informal economy. With a qualitative approach and the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) providing a guide to the study, women micro-traders in four markets were interviewed to ascertain the spill over effects of mobile phones in trading onto in their social lives. The findings of the study showed that the integration of mobile phones into trading activities reduced transaction and transportation cost as well as wastage which in turn led to earning of better incomes. With such better incomes the livelihood outcomes of these traders have improved as they have become financially empowered to the extent of becoming sole breadwinners of their families and households, gain recognitions in the groups/associations they belong to and enhanced their socio-economic status. Such financial empowerment has changed the previous traditional trend of men being financially in charge of their families and households. Mobile phone, as livelihood asset (physical asset) has therefore led to better livelihood outcomes through the livelihood strategies, (i.e. market trade) these women traders involved in. With good livelihood outcomes, these women have overcome vulnerabilities and marginalisation in the Ghanaian economyItem Flux and strain in marriage contraction: The changing face of bridewealth in contemporary Ghana(University of Ghana, 2019-10-03) Dodoo, N.D.: Despite many changes in African societal structures, bridewealth still occupies a central role in contracting marriages. In Ghana, among married women aged 15 to 49, a nationally representative survey in 2014 reported that 82% were in marriages that involved bridewealth. I use semi-structured in-depth interviews with traditional rulers and community leaders in Ghana to examine the current role of bridewealth in marriage and the implications of changes in the practice of bridewealth for unions. The results reveal that social, cultural, and economic changes have led to a breakdown of norms surrounding marriage contraction and the marriage process being more expensive than it was in the past. These have given the leeway for women to contribute to the bridewealth payment, leading to a shift in the power base of marriage, which may lead to marital conflict and instability. It is suggested that the role of love in modern marriages is explored and men are engaged in the process of developing healthy masculinities as avenues to counter the effects of these changes in contracting marriageItem Community perceptions on sexual activity and stroke(University of Ghana, 2019-09-19) Sanuade, O.Stroke is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Ghana and sometimes comes with multifaceted complications including sexual dysfunction. While evidence is clear that living with stroke can result in sexual dysfunction, there are contradictory views regarding the causal association between sexual activity and stroke. This study explores perceptions of Ghanaian local communities on the role of sexual activity on stroke causation. This was a cross-sectional qualitative study. Thirty (30) focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted in five communities across Ghana (Ga Mashie, Tafo, Gyegyeano, Chanshegu and Agorve) between October and November 2017. Data were analysed through a thematic approach. Participants generally believed that sexual activity can cause a stroke. They mentioned that the dynamics through which sex can trigger a stroke include sex positions (i.e. having sex while standing and on the floor), high frequency of sex, having sex when older and engaging in indiscriminate sex. This study shows the need to pay critical attention to these community perceptions when developing intervention strategies for stroke in Ghana. This study also highlights that discussion about sexual activity in Ghana is more complex than the current health education programme allows, and so demands a ‘comprehensive sex education approach’ rather than a ‘disease-centered approach’.Item Postpartum and Post-abortion Contraception and Sexual Inactivity among Single Adolescent and Young Adult Females in Ghana(University of Ghana, 2019-04-25) Atiglo, Y.This study assesses the relationship between pregnancy outcomes and pregnancy-preventive behaviours among unmarried young women intending to delay childbearing. Using data from the 2014 Ghana DHS among 1,118 single women aged 15–24 years, the study assessed how childbirth and abortion are related with sexual inactivity and use of modern contraception. Postpartum women were thrice as likely as nulligravid women and twice as likely as post-abortion women to use contraceptives. Post-abortion women were least likely to be sexually inactive. Duration of sexual experience was positively associated with the likelihood of a met need, particularly among the postpartum, and negatively associated with sexual inactivity among the ever-aborted. Prior pregnancy outcomes have significant implications for secondary abstinence and contraceptive use among unmarried young women. Efforts must be strengthened towards increasing access to modern contraceptives for young women who present for abortions in Ghana