No abstract

We analyze poultry‐related policy documents from Ghana and ask how the problems identified and the actions proposed have changed over time. The analysis highlights the fact of limited and poor quality data, and associated uncertainty, ambiguity and poor specification of both problems and interventions. It also points to a long‐term commitment to intensive commercial production as the preferred pathway to deliver more animal protein. However, in the face of persistent feed constraints and economic liberalization, imports of frozen chicken have sky‐rocketed since the early 2000s, and a new pathway has come to dominate. We discuss this outcome and what it says more generally about policy around minor crops and livestock species.

Shea nut, a women to Upper Wes African co women far of Ghana. F organizatio failures in been under to improve Keywords 1. Introdu 55 24.04 13.8

No abstract

Shea is an important tree crop for women in the three impoverished northern regions of Ghana and is considered to be a major source of poverty alleviation in these regions. The crop is picked in the wild as nuts mainly by women who sell the nuts to processors. These nuts are processed into butter and soap for local use and/or for exports. Institutional structures, from a variety sources including the cultural environment, community support systems and the State regulatory and support mechanisms, shape the opportunities, constraints and obstacles facing women pickers and local processors who rely on shea as an important source of income and economic empowerment. Both State and non-State institutions in Ghana have designed various policy interventions and programmes for the shea sector with the objective of reducing market failures of the sector and to improve incomes of shea-producing households. Based on a relatively large survey of 405 shea-producing households in selected districts of the Northern Region of Ghana, this paper discusses the institutional structures and policy measures in the shea sector in Ghana. From the perspective of the survey respondents, there is not enough coordination of programmes and policies among the various institutions in the shea sector. Respondents feel that the shea sector is largely unregulated; various actors take actions mainly for their own benefits and not necessarily for the benefit of the whole sector. Organised groups of shea-producing households are more likely to improve their chances of being impacted by programmes and policies of State and non-State institutions than unorganized individual shea-producing households.