This thesis analyses the development of urban water supply and sanitation services in Ghana from 1909 to 2005.  Special focus is put on institutional arrangements with regard to networked, large scale and centrally managed water and sewerage services. The national and international historical context is highlighted as a way to understand policy redirections in the sector. Further on, the concept of frames is used as an analytical tool in order to put light on the assumptions, arguments and reasons behind institutional reforms. The thesis finds that it was not until the water and sanitation challenge was framed from a productivity perspective, as opposed to a pure humanitarian “health frame”, that funds were released for investments in WSS infrastructure. To begin with, development strategies were largely focussed on “filling the gaps” in terms of manpower, technical and financial resources. As the water challenge was increasingly framed as a matter of managing scarcity, a new thinking gradually emerged which emphasized entrepreneurship, business mindedness and management skills as a way to achieve more efficiency within the sector. This development was also paralleled by a shift in the favoured organisational structure from an extremely centralised state utility model to a gradual focus on decentralisation and unbundling of the sector. Here a strong focus was put on private sector participation in urban water supply whereas the non-commercially viable task of sewerage development was decentralised to local authorities. The study finds that formal institutional change in the sector has been largely donor driven. However, the privatisation element of the recent urban water sector reform did not go unquestioned and a strong opposition movement concerned with the possible negative effects of privatisation was formed. Eventually the initial lease arrangement was transformed into a management contract where its signing was brought to closure in 2005. Besides changing frames strong elements of continuity in the urban water supply and sanitation sector development in Ghana are identified. Historical evidence demonstrate that urban water delivery was a highly political issue in Ghana already during colonial times which, just as today, was closely connected to the framing of water as independence and national integrity. The issue of finance and pricing has remained a constant concern and so the debate cannot be categorized as a novel issue that solely emanates from neo-liberal political trends during the 1980’s and 1990’s. The thesis argues that a legacy of a colonial frame tends to continue normalising inequalities in access and consumption.  Continuity can also be found in a neglect of the issue of sanitation which persistently lags behind the development of water distribution. The dissertation concludes that the perceived space for policy alternatives in Ghanaian WSS sector development has been largely constrained by the historical context and contemporary development theories. Therefore, to constantly strive towards a frame reflective policy dialogue is strongly encouraged as a way for policy planners and decision makers to make well informed decisions for the future.

Background: The importance of tackling economic, social and health-related inequities is increasingly accepted as a core concern for the post-Millennium Development Goal framework. However, there is a global dearth of high-quality, policy-relevant and actionable data on inequities within populations, which means that development solutions seldom focus on the people who need them most. INTREC (INDEPTH Training and Research Centres of Excellence) was established with this concern in mind. It aims to provide training for researchers from the INDEPTH network on associations between health inequities, the social determinants of health (SDH), and health outcomes, and on presenting their findings in a usable form to policy makers. Objective: As part of a baseline situation analysis for INTREC, this paper assesses the current status of SDH training in three of the African INTREC countries - Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa - as well as the gaps, barriers, and opportunities for training. Methods: SDH-related courses from the three countries were identified through personal knowledge of the researchers, supplemented by snowballing and online searches. Interviews were also conducted with, among others, academics engaged in SDH and public health training in order to provide context and complementary material. Information regarding access to the Internet, as a possible INTREC teaching medium, was gathered in each country through online searches. Results: SDH-relevant training is available, but 1) the number of places available for students is limited; 2) the training tends to be public-health-oriented rather than inclusive of the broader, multi-sectoral issues associated with SDH; and 3) insufficient funding places limitations on both students and on the training institutions themselves, thereby affecting participation and quality. We also identified rapidly expanding Internet connectivity in all three countries, which opens up opportunities for e-learning on SDH, though the current quality of the Internet services remains mixed. Conclusions: SDH training is currently in short supply, and there is a clear role for INTREC to contribute to the training of a critical mass of African researchers on the topic. This work will be accomplished most effectively by building on pre-existing networks, institutions, and methods.

For several decades following its independence from Great Britain, Ghana’s policies continued to promote over-extraction of natural resources to the detriment of its economy and rural communities. Agricultural and forestry policy has gradually evolved to foster more sustainable and equitable practices, as in building partnerships with the private sector to fund infrastructure improvements. Policy has recently recognized the dire need to adopt agricultural practices and means of forest resource extraction that are compatible with ecological stewardship. However, many shortcomings are still apparent. Large logging operations completely disregard forestry regulations with impunity, whereas rural sustenance extractors are severely punished in the rare event that policy is actually enforced. Although the severe disadvantages that agricultural policies had imposed in the 1960s have been partially alleviated, much improvement is still needed. Recent agricultural policy has recognized the lack of funding available to invest in more efficient and higher-yielding agricultural practices, but partnerships with the actual lending institutions do not exist. The scarcity of crucial inputs, such as fertilizer and technical assistance remains a major problem in the agricultural sector, as the soils are becoming rapidly depleted, leading to declining crop yields and further encroachment on the 20 percent of forests remaining. Overly ambitious targets and unrealistic policies require more careful and detailed formulation so that Ghana’s resources can be managed effectively before famine sweeps the food-insecure country once more.

Ghana, a low-income developing country in sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing low maternal health service utilization and high rates of maternal mortality, especially in the rural areas. The Talensi-Nabdam District is one of the poorest and most remote districts in Ghana. The reproductive health status of women in the most remote communities in this District is poor. Dialogue about women’s reproductive health care needs in Ghana have been influenced by health care authorities, professionals, researchers and experts’ perceptions. The purpose of this ethnographic research was to explore rural Ghanaian women’s experiences of seeking reproductive health care from their own perspectives. The study was based on data collected from participant observations, unstructured face-to-face interviews and focus group discussions. A total of 27 women of varying socio-demographic backgrounds participated in the study. Interviews were conducted at locations of the women’s choice and in women’s local dialect. Data were translated and transcribed verbatim, and analyzed thematically. Four major themes emerged from the findings: submitting to the voices of family, women’s experiences of receiving nursing care, the community of gossip, and gaining voice. The findings of this study have implications for nursing practice, education and nursing inquiry. Awareness of barriers that rural women encounter in meeting their reproductive health care needs among health care providers is important in facilitating positive health care seeking behaviours. Nurse educators should orient themselves to the challenges to meeting women’s health care needs, and include in culturally sensitive approaches in nursing education programs. Further research is needed to investigate strategies that will enhance women’s reproductive health care seeking behaviours in rural settings and to focus on women’s perspectives in particular. In addition, research is needed to examine nurses’ perspectives on factors that influence quality care delivery to address women’s reproductive health issues.

Au début des années 1990, après plusieurs décennies de régimes de parti unique et de juntes militaires, la plupart des pays africains ont (r)établi le système multipartite. Des dizaines de partis politiques sont créés ou reconstruits avec l'objectif précis d'accéder au pouvoir exécutif suprême. Cependant, environ deux décennies plus tard, peu de ces partis ont atteint leur objectif de conquête du pouvoir. En effet, sur 73 cas de changements pacifiques de leaders en Afrique entre 1990 et 2008, seulement 18 ont bénéficié aux candidats présentés par les partis politiques de l'opposition. Ce nombre semble décevant par rapport aux immenses espoirs de «véritable alternance» que ces partis politiques ont suscité au début de la décennie 1990. Cette thèse s'emploie à esquisser des éléments de réponse à cette situation dans la période allant de 1990 à décembre 2008. Afin d'approfondir l'analyse sur cette question, les cas du Bénin, du Ghana et de la Guinée ont été choisis pour mener une étude comparative. Il est vrai qu'il ya eu trois alternances au pouvoir exécutif au Bénin dans la période visée. Mais tous les présidents élus étaient des «candidats indépendants». La Guinée n'a connu aucune alternance dans la période sous examen, ni de personnalités, et encore moins de partis. Le Ghana est donc le seul pays, parmi les trois, où il y a eu deux alternances au pouvoir par un parti politique de l'opposition. Ceci problématise la situation et conduit à la question suivante: comment expliquer la réussite de deux partis d'opposition au Ghana et l'échec de leurs homologues dans les autres pays à conquérir le pouvoir exécutif? Pour répondre à cette question, il a fallu retracer l'historique et l'évolution du multipartisme et des élections dans les trois pays, analyser leur environnement politique et institutionnel par rapport à la compétition politique, et porter un regard critique sur les stratégies notamment des leaders de l'opposition dans leur quête pour le pouvoir. Cette démarche a permis d'avancer l'hypothèse suivante: l'alternance au pouvoir par un parti d'opposition n'est possible que dans un système bipartisan ou bipolarisé, quoique la satisfaction de l'une de ces conditions ne soit pas suffisante. Les exceptions à cette observation sont rares en Afrique et sont le résultat d'une rare combinaison de circonstances particulières. Le Ghana a un système bipartisan. Le système bipolarisé est un bipartisme ad hoc créé grâce à la formation d'une coalition des principaux partis d'opposition. Les paysages politiques béninois et guinéen sont caractérisés par une prolifération de partis politiques qui ont jusque-là échoué dans leurs tentatives de former une véritable coalition électorale contre les partis au pouvoir. Le bipartisme relève de l'environnement institutionnel, et la bipolarisation des stratégies des leaders politiques, d'où notre recours aux approches néo-institutionnelle et stratégique (choix rationnel) comme cadres théoriques. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Parti politique, parti d'opposition, alternance au pouvoir, démocratie et démocratisation, élections, formation de coalitions, Bénin, Ghana, Guinée, Afrique de l'Ouest

In recent years, many research works such as Tiao and Tsay (1994), Stock and Watson (1999), Chen et al. (2001), Clements and Jeremy (2001), Marcellino (2002), Laurini and Vieira (2005) and others have described the dynamic features of many macroeconomic variables as nonlinear. Using the approach of Keenan (1985) and Tsay (1989) this study shown that Ghana inflation rates from January 1980 to December 2009 follow a threshold nonlinear process.  In order to take into account the nonlinearity in the inflation rates we then apply a two regime nonlinear SETAR model to the inflation rates and then study both in-sample and out-of-sample forecast performance of this model by comparing it with the linear SARIMA model. Based on the in-sample forecast assessment from the linear SARIMA and the nonlinear SETAR models, the forecast measure MAE and RMSE suggest that the nonlinear SETAR model outperform the linear SARIMA model. Also using multi-step-ahead forecast method we predicted and compared the out-of-sample forecast of the linear SARIMA and the nonlinear SETAR models over the forecast horizon of 12 months during the period of 2010:1 to 2010:12. From the results as suggested by MAE and RMSE, the forecast performance of the nonlinear SETAR models is superior to that of the linear SARIMA model in forecasting Ghana inflation rates. Thought the nonlinear SETAR model is superior to the SARIMA model according to MAE and RMSE measure but using Diebold-Mariano test, we found no significant difference in their forecast accuracy for both in-sample and out-of-sample.

I denna studie undersöker och analyserar jag religionsundervisningen i tre olika skolor i Ghanas huvudstad Accra. De tre skolorna har alla olika profiler, varav en är muslimsk, en är kristen och en saknar religiös profil eller är icke-konfessionell. De tre skolorna är således Islamic Educational Unit, Presbyterian Boys Secondary School samt University Primary School. Studiens syfte är att jämföra hur religionsundervisningen ser ut och bedrivs i de olika skolorna, vilka olika religioner som presenteras i undervisningen och hur man ställer sig till olika aspekter av religionsundervisningen och religion i allmänhet, och hur ämnet är upplagt. Jag vill undersöka huruvida religionsundervisningen i de olika skolorna domineras av någon religion och ifall någon religion helt lämnas utanför. Detta är viktigt för att ge en bild av hur skolornas karaktär ser ut och hur man prioriterar i undervisningen. Undersökningen innebär en jämförelse mellan skolorna, vad som skiljer och vad som är likt i den undervisning som ges till ungdomar i några av Accras skolor. För att få den bästa och mest övergripande bilden av hur undervisningen ser ut, krävs en stor tonvikt på lärarna. Eftersom lärarna ger så stark prägel på undervisningen, behövs det även framhållas hur de personligen ser på religion i olika syften. För att nå mina mål och syften, kommer jag att arbeta utifrån följande frågeställningar: • Vilka böcker och vilken litteratur används i samband med undervisningen? • Vilken syn har lärarna på religion som ett ämne i skolan? • Vilken är lärarnas personliga syn på religion, och religionen i samhället? • Vilka religioner presenteras i undervisningen? / The purpose of this study was to examine how religion as a subject in school is taught in three different schools in the capitol of Ghana, Accra. The schools have different religious profiles; Muslim, Christian and non-confessional. The aim is to present a view on the subject of religion that is taught in these different schools, what separates them and what is common to them. The result was slightly surprising, because all the schools seemed more similar than different. That is not what you could expect from the beginning, but it has its reasons. In Ghana there is and always has been a strong freedom of worship, and they have never suffered from problems with religious disputes in modern times. Certainly that is because of the education that is given in the schools. Every student is taught about the three main religions in Ghana, and they learn about them in detail. The main difference between the three schools is that the Christian school has its own subject (Christian Religious Studies), and that the Muslim school has mandatory teaching in Arabic and Islam. Besides that, the similarities are much more visible than the differences. Much of that is because of the economic situation in the country, there are no options, and therefore the education is similar in most of the schools.

Im Forschungsprojekt wird ein methodischer Ansatz nach der GAP1 Analyse eingesetzt, um zu bestimmen, inwieweit der Kontext des Umweltmanagementsystems nach der ISO 14001-Norm in der Wirtschaft Ghanas verstanden wird. Die Ergebnisse werden anschließend als eine Grundlage für eine Evaluierung des Umweltengagements in der Wirtschaft Ghanas, sowohl aus der Perspektive einzelner Unternehmen als auch im interindustriellen Vergleich eingesetzt. Den Ausgang bilden die Theorie der nachhaltigen Entwicklung auf betrieblicher und Branchenebene. Die Ergebnisse einer Befragung wurden ausgewertet und Möglichkeiten zur Verbesserung wurden entwickelt.

<p>Kakaobönderna tillhör några av de fattigaste människorna i världen. En grupp bönder i Ghana insåg att deras förutsättningar skulle förbättras om de samarbetade. Kuapa Kokoo är resultatet, ett kakaokooperativ som grundades när en grupp odlare beslöt sig för att gå samman för att bättre kunna ta del av vad marknaden har att erbjuda. Rättvisemärkt certifierade Kuapa Kokoo, vilket innebar att kakaobönderna nu var delaktiga i Rättvisemärkts mål om att förbättra deras arbets- och levnadsvillkor.</p><p>Jag valde att titta närmare på Rättvisemärkt då organisationens verksamhet ofta framställs som något positivt av media. Intervjuer med kakaobönderna tyder på att deras levnadsstandard har förbättrats genom Kuapa Kokoo. Rättvisemärkts arbete har, enligt bönderna, medfört att de nu får en skälig lön, som betalas ut i tid, för sitt arbete; de har pengar till mat; de har råd att skicka sina barn till skolan; råd att betala för sjukvård, och har numera brunnar med rent vatten. </p><p>Den här socialantropologiska studien behandlar även kritikernas argument mot Rättvisemärkt. Till skillnad från medias positiva bild av Rättvisemärkt har jag i olika sammanhang även kommit i kontakt med kritiskt inställda människor. Det gjorde mig nyfiken på att se vilka argument kritikerna lägger fram, och om de kan utgöra en skälig grund till att ifrågasätta Rättvisemärkts arbete. Deras slutsats är att konsumenten hjälper utvecklingsländernas befolkning mer genom att inte köpa rättvisemärkta varor. </p>

Care is socially constructed, shaped by expectations embedded within particular relationships and the culturally-specific understandings of what it means to work, love and suffer. In this dissertation, I conceptualize care as a fundamental component of everyday life in which individuals are oriented towards the needs of others. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a rural Konkomba community in northern Ghana, I explore the geographies of care shaping the everyday experiences of women engaged in intergenerational relationships as they encounter emerging dependencies associated with ageing. Dependencies emerge when an individual requires support and care from another, and in turn the struggles for, and the provision of this support has material and emotional implications for those involved. I make three primary contributions. First, I examine the potential for a feminist ethics of care within livelihoods approaches in order to destabilize notions of independence and material outcomes, arguing that livelihood strategies are characterized by interdependencies within families and communities. Second, I contribute to an understanding of the politics of care by considering women's mobility in the face of competing demands on their labor and resources. Despite responsibilities to provide a 'good death', women experience social and material hurdles to negotiate their mobility in order to provide end of life care to a parent. Third, I explore the embodied emotional experiences of elderly women as they experience dependencies and struggle to engage in material exchange and caring relationships. As a result of these emergence of dependencies, women's everyday lives are deeply shaped by experiences of love and suffering. In northern Ghana, as in other rural agrarian communities in developing regions, the elderly population is growing and a weak formal care infrastructure is ill-prepared to face the pressures of an ageing population. Through this dissertation, I highlight the complex geographies of care shaping everyday life experiences and contribute to an understanding of the particular issues faced by communities where intergenerational relationships are key to lives lived with care.