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PurposeThis study sought to examine the impact of financial knowledge, financial attitude, locus of control and income on financial behaviour.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed the reasoned action approach framework by Fishbein and Ajzen (2010), with formal sector workers in three districts of Ghana as the population. Questionnaires were used to collect data and analysed using partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe results of the study revealed that perceived financial knowledge, financial attitude and locus of control had a significant positive relationship with financial behaviour intention. The assertion that actual financial knowledge and income influence actual financial behaviour was not supported by the findings. However, income moderated significantly the intention–actual financial behaviour relationship.Practical implicationsThe findings imply that having financial knowledge or earning a higher income in itself does not guarantee the good financial behaviour of people. It is recommended that financial education must focus on developing good financial attitudes and beliefs to enhance the needed behavioural change.Originality/valueTo the best of the researcher's knowledge, there is no study of financial behaviour that adopts the methodology and variables used in this research in Ghana.

The relationships between poverty, population growth and government policy in the creation of poor sanitary environments in low income residential areas are discussed. In recent years, the implementation of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) in Sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries has had the effect of shrinking the formal/modern sectors and expanding the informal sector. While small scale informal sector activities have dominated Cape Coast’s economic base for a long time, the contraction of the formal sector resulting from structural adjustment conditionalities has engendered a disproportionate growth of the informal sector. This paper examines the environmental implications on an urban economy (Cape Coast) dominated by informal sector activities. It shows how the low pay associated with available employment reduces the ability of the municipal authority to promote urban development especially environmental health on the basis of taxes alone.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how framing of conflict in different phases is constructed and how the specific framing affects the development of the conflict and its management in the farmer–herder conflict in the Asante Akyem North District of Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The study area is Agogo which falls within the Asante Akyem North District in Ghana. The study used a qualitative approach whose philosophical ontology and epistemology believe that meaning is constructed (interpretivism). It further used a case study design using in-depth interviews, focus group discussion and observation guide. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. The data were analysed using the thematic analysis approach. Ethical considerations such as informed consent, willingness and anonymity of respondents were duly respected. Findings The findings highlighted that the conflict actors formed frames such as identity-relational, affective-intellectual and negotiation-win frames as the drivers of the conflict. In this conflict, the farmers who are indigenes and custodians of the land feel more potent over the transnational migrants who are pastoralists and argue that the herdsmen be flushed out without negotiation. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the papers that bring to light the psychological dimension of the causes of the farmer–herder conflict in Ghana.

Evaluation research of rural water projects has not paid much attention to examining the extent to which intended beneficiaries actually utilized the new water points for drinking purposes. This paper presents a survey of water use patterns in a rural district of Ghana to find out the source(s) of water for drinking both at home and when on the farm. Because farms are at a considerable distance from the settlements where the boreholes are located, the use of borehole water when on the farm provides a good standard with which to evaluate community education components of the water programmes.

Street foods provide a convenient diet for many people in developing countries with the consumption supporting the livelihood of several individuals. However, street food safety is a major global concern due to poor food handling and insanitary conditions that often lead to coliform bacteria contamination resulting in the outbreak of foodborne diseases. This paper analyses the microbial content of food served by food vendors in the Bolgatanga Municipality of Ghana, which has recorded high levels of foodborne diseases. Using a mixed research approach, and a cross-sectional design, a total of 150 food vendors were sampled from 10 communities within the Municipality. Food samples from the vendors were taken and subjected to microbial load analysis. Out of the 66 food samples tested, 42.4 percent recorded the presence of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) with only six recording the presence of S. typhi (S. typhi). All the samples that were isolated for Escherichia coli (E. coli) had microbial loading of 1 and above, with the lowest recorded to be 1.6 ± 0.6 log CFU/g. The highest contamination by E. coli was in the samples of tomato sauce, followed by samples of rice balls and then by groundnut soup. The high microbial quality of the street foods sampled suggests that the safety of food vendors’ food handling practices was largely compromised and so most of the foods were contaminated above acceptable levels for consumption. The study recommends that food vendors should be educated on proper personal hygiene and to avoid making direct skin contact with food.

This paper assesses the effects of inter-ethnic chieftaincy and land conflicts on the socio-political development of northern Ghana. The knowledge gap the study sought to fill is the use of theoretical antecedents to illustrate that conflicts have some merits for socio-political development and that conflict theories equally depict solutions to conflicts. Methodologically, the study makes use of content analysis of secondary data, by following the tenets of the realistic group conflict theory. Examples were drawn from the Konkomba, Gonja, Nanumba, Dagomba, Kusasi, Mo and the Sissala disputes of emancipation. It was revealed that major positive effects of the conflicts include improvement in the decision-making processes on community development issues, strengthening of inter-ethnic unity and helping to redeem the identity of a group. The destruction of life and property is the major demerit. It was recommended that civic education on the causes and effects of the conflicts by authentic participation of potential disputants could provide a more sustainable way of preventing conflict.

In the examination of the implementation of rural drinking water facilities, not enough attention has been paid to analyzing the socioeconomic and political relationships that affect the effective utilization of the facilities, particularly as these relate to women in rural society. This paper suggests that much of the difficulty in instituting the utilization of safe water supply sources has to do with the rather low economic status of women--the main water collectors. Poverty consigns women to long periods of work in activities or jobs that bring little reward. This makes it difficult to effectively digest the messages delivered by program staff and limits the extent of usage of the safe water facilities.For the past three decades, much international attention has been fi)cused on the marginalization of women in all spheres of societal activity despite the important roles they play in socioeconomic development (Akanji 1992). In the rural areas of the developing countries, for instance, women reportedly provide over 7(1% of the labor force in agriculture, in addition to the traditional domestic responsibilities. Yet, in many areas, women cannot own land and often cultivate on marginal lands (Imam 1990, Gakou 1987. They have little access to credit and extension services to improve productivity (Andah 1978, Roncoli 1985. Facilities for health care and water supply are equally appallingly inadequate.The above problems led to the call on governments and women's movements to strive to improve the economic conditions of women (Moser 1989). The United Nations Women's Decade (1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985) was launched to address these issues, "aimed at drawing attention to outstanding omissions in national development strategies which have contributed not only to lack of scientific appraisal but also the remedy of social conditions of women, children and youth" (Pala and Seidman 1976 as cited in Bortei-Doku 1992). Women in Development (WID) projects have been and are being established in many countries to pro-KEY WORDS: Condition of women: Water supply; Sanitation; Rural health vide basic needs. These include water-supply and income-generating projects.Other academic discussions, however, view the improvement of the economic condition of women as insut'ficient to redress the imbalances in access to socioeconomic and political resources between men and women (see Moser 1989 for a review). These discussions culminated in the call for structural changes in gender relationships, emphasizing not just the biological differences between men and women but also the social relationships (Molyneaux 1985, Imam 1990.Two approaches to gender planning in development emerged: ( 1 ) the concern to improve the economic conditions of women (practical gender needs), and (2) the need to transcend basic needs provisions to political reahns (strategfic gender needs). While most developing country govern ments and the international donor community continue to fund WID projects to improve practical gender ne...