Huge social investment bring little results

By Ama Achiaa Amankwah
The livelihoods of women in the Savelugu-Nanton district in the Northern Region is reported to have seen slight improvement, despite huge investment made to improve their situation in the last five years.

In terms of economic security, measures that were put in place to improve the livelihood of women in the district through credit from non-governmental organizations, religious and non-financial institutions did not help much.

Even though the credit was aimed at improving the incomes of these women, they were considered small with each receiving an amount of about ¢500,000.

A recent research, (December 2005) on the livelihoods and food security of women in the district, identified rice processing, shea-butter extraction, picking of shea nuts and farming as the main livelihood activities of the women.

The survey by the Savelugu-Nanton District Assembly through the assistance of the Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa and the International Centre for Research on Women, (ICRW), cited selling of soup ingredients, selling of firewood and production and sale of charcoal as other minor livelihood activities.

Household livelihood security is defined as adequate and sustainable access to income and resources to meet basic needs such as adequate access to food, potable water, health facilities and educational opportunities among others. The two immediate determinants of livelihood security are economic and nutritional security.

But despite all these efforts, Mr. Kareem Daari, a Lecturer at the Department of Community Nutrition of the University of Development Studies, (UDS), stated there are a lot of challenges to be met.

Speaking at seminar in Accra on the Status of Nutrition in Ghana, Mr. Daari explained, that these challenges include lack of funds for women in the district to start their own businesses or to expand livelihood activities. “Some of the women are not able to sustain their trades because they spend much of their monies on their families.”

Marketing of the produce by these women, according to the lecturer is poor, due to lack of information on market trends and activities of middlemen, who buy them cheaper from the women, leaving them with nothing.

In the area of nutritional security needs of households, which relates to improvement of household incomes, Mr. Daari stated that they have not been met. Most of the households were said to have run out of food within the year and had to resort to the sale of small animals to buy food.

Among the major reasons for food shortages are poor yields, due to rainfall pattern and inability of families to purchase farm inputs. As a result, malnutrition is high. The only people who are fortunate to have food all year round include tractor owners who are able to travel long distances.

Mr. Kareem stressed that short term plans to improve women’s livelihood activities include expansion of micro-credit scheme to cover more women and acquire processing machinery for them.
Improving literacy rate of women to support households, establishing rural enterprise projects and improvement of infrastructural facilities linked to women’s livelihood activities as some long term plans.

Dr. Rudolf Amenga-Etego, Executive Director of Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa, emphasized the need to bring issues of nutrition and gender back on the national agenda. In his opinion, the country’s struggle to provide potable water at the district level would not be able to achieve much, if it is not matched with nutrition.