ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
An Analysis of the Contribution of the Global Fund in the Health Sector of Developing Countries: The Case of Ghana

The health sector is one of the under-resourced areas in most developing countries. The advent of human security following the 1994 UNDP report has increased the recognition of health in a security dimension and promoted further investments in the sector. In the last decade, Global Health Initiatives (GHIs) like the Global Fund have changed the landscape and architecture of health investments in most developing countries. The Global Fund currently plays a dominant role in the fight against three major infectious diseases in the world. This study analyses the contribution of the Global Fund in the health sector of developing countries using Ghana as a case study. The qualitative research approach was employed to gather, analyse and interpret data. In all, five interviews were conducted, and these respondents were carefully selected for the study. Based on interviews and secondary sources, the study identified several gaps in Ghana’s health sector, which have provided room for the Global Fund to contribute to the health sector. The research identified the entire population, including key populations like Female Sex Workers as focus groups of Global Fund operations in Ghana. From the study, the Global Fund has made significant contributions such as assisting the government to reduce disease burden, promoting human resources for health, refurbishment of facilities and empowering civil societies, in the health sector. The study further revealed that the Global Fund contributes indirectly to health policies of Ghana and identified inadequate skilled personnel, occasional conflicts of interests, issues of programme sustainability and cultural beliefs as factors inhibiting the Global Fund’s interventions in Ghana. The study recommends that the government and Global Fund should increase dialogue, intensify health education and cooperate to enhance health personnel capacity. The government should further regulate health staff transfers and increase health budget allocation to promote health development in the country.

Source: UG
An analysis of the effects of customer satisfaction and engagement on social media on repurchase intention in the hospitality industry

The purpose of this quantitative-deductive paper is to explore the link between amongst customer satisfaction and engagement on social media on repurchase intention in the hospitality industry. The study was conducted on social media because it is the fastest-growing media in history. Data was collected from hotels in the three major business hub cities (Accra, Tamale and Kumasi) in Ghana. A total of 504 valid responses were obtained from respondents in the selected cities. SmartPLS software was used to analyze the data using the PLS-SEM method. The results show that customer satisfaction has a positive and significant relationship on the dimensions of customer engagement. The three dimensions of customer engagement (contribution, consumption and creation) were found to significantly influence repurchase intention. Finally, two dimensions of engagement (contribution and consumption) were found to mediate the relationship between customer satisfactions and repurchase intentions. The study is among the few to combine the COBRA model and Social Exchange Theory to assess the nexus between customersengagement in an online environment and its linkages with satisfaction and repurchase intentions. Marketers should consider creating posts with photos, videos, and animation that consumers find entertaining and enjoyable, as this stimulates their desire to consume, contribute, and create content on social media pages for hotel brands.

Source: UG
Analysis of the Financial Cost of Diabetes Mellitus in Four Cocoa Clinics of Ghana

Objective: To estimate the financial cost of managing diabetes mellitus in four Cocoa clinics of Ghana. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study of diabetes management was carried out in the four Cocoa clinics of Ghana from January to December 2009. The "cost-of-illness" approach from the institutional perspective was used. A pretested data extraction form was used to review the medical records of 304 randomly selected diabetic patients. Results: The patients' mean age was 55.4 ± 9.4 years. The mean annual financial cost of managing one diabetic case at the clinics was estimated to be Ghana cedi (GHS) 540.35 (US $372.65). Service cost constituted 22% of the cost, whereas direct medical cost constituted 78% of the cost. Drug cost was 71% of the financial cost. The cost of hospitalization per patient-day at Cocoa clinics was estimated at GHS 32.78 (US $22.61). The total financial cost of diabetes management was estimated at GHS 420,087.67 (US $289,715.63). This accounted for 8% of the total expenditure for the clinics in the year 2009. The study showed that facility type, type of diabetes, and presence of complication are associated with the cost of diabetes management to Cocoa clinics. Conclusions: The mean age of detection suggests delay in diagnosis of diabetes mellitus and accompanying complications, which has cost implications. Policy that enhances early detection of diabetes in clinical practice would therefore improve management and reduce costs. The financial cost of managing diabetes can be used to forecast the economic burden of the disease in the area. © 2015 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR).

Source: UG
An analysis of the impact of strategic marketing on the Profitability of Rural Banks – A Case Study of Dangme Bank

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence strategic marketing in relation to profitability in rural banking in Ghana. The research was conducted to see how management and employees follow strategic marketing programmes in delivering superior quality service to their customers and how customers view the service that they receive from the bank. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources. The research revealed that strategic marketing has an effect on the profitability of rural bank services; it revealed that Dangme Rural Bank was marketing oriented and were practicing strategic marketing very well. All employees and the management were conscious of strategic marketing process and activities.

Source: UG
Analysis of the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of cooking fuels used in Ghana

This study evaluated the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of fuels used in Ghanaian households for cooking. The analysis covered all the common cooking energy sources, namely, firewood, charcoal, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, electricity and even biogas, whose use is not as widespread as the others. In addition to the usual costing methods, the Environmental Product Strategies approach (EPS) of Steen and co-workers, which is based on the concept of 'willingness-to-pay' for the restoration of degraded systems, is used to monetise the emissions from the cookstoves. The results indicate that firewood, one of the popular woodfuels in Ghana and other developing countries, with an annual environmental damage cost of US$ 36,497 per household, is more than one order of magnitude less desirable than charcoal, the nearest fuel on the same scale, at US$ 3120. This method of representing the results of environmental analysis is complementary to the usual gravimetric life-cycle assessment (LCA) representation, and brings home clearly to decision-makers, especially non-LCA practitioners, the significance of environmental analysis results in terms that are familiar to all. © 2012.

Source: UG
An Analysis of the Negative Effects of Regional Economic Integration on Ghana

The inspiration for the creation of ECOWAS came from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), which had divided Africa earlier in the1960s into regions for purposes of economic development. The ECOWAS Treaty seeks to establish an economic and monetary union based on the removal of duties and equivalent taxes, the adoption of a common external tariff, and a harmonization of economic and sectoral policies. In 1993, ECOWAS revised its Treaty to introduce among other measures, the principle of supra-nationality concerning the application of its decisions. The ratification of the ECOWAS regional economic integration protocols and frameworks, like other various international community agreements, places both problems and benefits on the various nations in West Africa. This study identified the different Protocols and Frameworks of integration within the West-African sub-region, explored how these protocols and frameworks affect the economic environment of Ghana, and sought to analyze the negative effects of regional economic integration on Ghana. Economic Integration Theory was the theory that guided this study. The study is purely qualitative and depended on both primary and secondary data. The findings discussed the ECOWAS protocols on free movement, the harmonization of economic and fiscal policies such as the CET and EPA, and how they have negatively impacted Ghana. Based on the findings, the work concludes and recommends that ECOWAS, the Ghanaian Government and Civil Society Organizations put greater effort into making integration work, eliminate differentiated regulatory schemes and trade standards, improve regional industrial policy, regional infrastructure and build strong regional institutions and policies.

Source: UG
An analysis of the population-food crop nexus in Ghana

Rapid population growth has consequences for food production in Ghana. This paper assesses the trend and pattern of population growth in the country from 1960 to 2000, and projections for 2010, in ten administrative regions of Ghana, using population census data. In addition, it assesses crop production from 1960 to 2002, using data from the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture and FAO, and concludes with an assessment of the relationship between population and food crop production. Predictions of the amount of food that would be required as a result of population growth have been computed for 2010, for certain crops in the Upper East and Upper West regions and at the national level, based on simple regression models and projected populations. Predictions show that maize, sorghum and millet production in Upper East, and sorghum production in Upper West would have to increase by an annual rate of 6,3%, 0,9%, 6,0% and 10,5%, respectively, in order to meet the needs of the projected population in 2010. At the national level, cocoyam and plantain production would have to increase by 1,9% and 12,7% per annum respectively, to meet demand of Ghana’s projected population of 2010. However, in 2000 groundnut production in the Upper East Region exceeded what the population needed. Thus, assuming groundnut production decreased by an annual rate of 4,4%, it could still be sufficient to sustain the population of the region until 2010. The paper concludes by making a number of recommendations.

Source: UG
An Analysis of the Socio-Economic Integration of Nigerian Migrants in Ghana

Migration to Ghana from post-independence era to recent times has been mainly dominated by Nigerians. Factors such as economic opportunities, peace and stability in Ghana as well as the free movement ECOWAS Protocol are among the key determinants of Nigerian migration to Ghana. Since this era, Ghana has experienced migration and integration of Nigerians in the country. While this protocol helps these migrants to move to Ghana, it does not explicitly tackle the issues they face in their effort at integrating in Ghana. The study adopts integration as a conceptual framework in explaining the social and economic factors that facilitate integration of Nigerian migrants in Ghana. The study indicates that social networks, access to education, housing and labour market are among the socio-economic factors that facilitate integration of Nigerian migrants in Ghana. The study employs a qualitative research method and relies on both primary and secondary data to draw conclusions. Nigerians face some challenges in the social and economic aspects of their integration process in Ghana. The Government of Ghana on her part has enacted policies that facilitate the integration of these migrants, however, these policies have not yielded all the expected outcomes. To achieve self-sufficiency for its members and promote their socio-economic integration in Ghana, recommendations are therefore made for ECOWAS to have a partnership agreement with Ghana to subsidize school fees for international students from countries in the ECOWAS community. Also, it is important for the GoG to broaden the constitution to allow foreign nationals the right to acquire and develop lands in Ghana to address the challenges Nigerians have with housing which impede their socio-economic integration. Additionally, the trading and investment sector of Ghana must be reconstructed to position the country in a way that will benefit from Nigerians who are engaged in businesses in Ghana.

Source: UG
An Analysis of Women’s Political Participation in Ghana under SDG5

The representation of women in political and public life has been historically low across the globe despite the efforts being made to reverse the trend. Very few countries have recorded marginal and inconsistent increase in women’s representation. Ghana is not exempted from this global trend. This study focused on analyzing women’s political participation in Ghana in the context of sustainable development, an attempt to identify factors that have positively affected women’s political participation, challenges faced by women occupying and intending to occupy political positions and innovative ways of dealing with these challenges. The methodology was qualitative in design and involved online survey with purposively selected members of the general public and interviews with women parliamentarians, district assembly and unit committee members, political party executives and also representatives from non-governmental organizations. In addition to primary data from respondents, the study relied on secondary data from existing literature to support the work. The study found out that despite domestic and international commitments and efforts to increase women’s political participation, the statistics is still low at both national and local government levels with very marginal rise particularly in the number of contestants for elective positions. Since 1992, women’s representation in the national parliament has been below 13 percent. The study realized that women occupying and intending to occupy political positions face similar and sometimes peculiar challenges including excessive monetization of politics, political party gatekeeping and the ‘godfather’ syndrome and lack of support from family, media and society due to the patriarchal society. It is a wake-up call for all stakeholders. - government, women’s groups, non-governmental organizations, civil society, traditional and religious leaders, development partners and women themselves to work together. The passage of the affirmative action bill into law coupled with proper implementation, monitoring and evaluation by all stakeholders will make a difference in meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 5.

Source: UG
Analytical issues in the study of verb-noun compounds: How does Akan fit in?

This paper highlights three issues in the study of verb-noun compounding and shows how data from Akan (Niger-Congo\Kwa, Ghana) help answer the relevant questions for the language. The issues, which mainly concern the exocentric subtype, are: one, the syntactic category of the left-hand constituent and that of the whole compound; two, whether the formation of verb-noun compounds is a matter of syntax or morphology; and three, how to distinguish between verb-noun compounds and verb phrases, given their structural similarity. Although these issues have come up somehow in the literature on Akan verb-noun compounds, they have not been deliberately targeted for discussion. This paper fills the gap. It is shown that the left-hand constituent is definitely a verb. This raises the question of how to account for the syntactic category of the exocentric subclass of the compound, given that the compound is not a hyponym of the right-hand nominal constituent whose syntactic category may be assumed to percolate to the whole. It is also argued that, per the criteria in the literature, the formation of Akan verb-noun compounds has to be a matter of morphology and not syntax. Finally, it is shown that there are formal and semantic basis for distinguishing verb-noun compounds from verb phrases in Akan.

Source: UG
An Analytical Study of Masters Dissertations on the Balme Library, University of Ghana, Legon

This paper analyses masters dissertations written on the Balme Library, University of Ghana by students of the Department of Information Studies, University of Ghana fram 1998-2005, with a view to ascertaining how the management of Balme Library has implemented the recommendations from the dissertations. The analysis takes the form of the type and year of dissertation, subject of dissertation, and whether written by Balme Library staff or not. The findings indicate that most of the recommendations in the dissertations have not been implemented by the library. One of the reasons for this is that the Balme Library did not even know of the findings and recommendations. Some suggestions have been made to overcome this problem, including the need for staff of the Balme Library to supervise some of such dissertations or, failing this, and/or the need for the management of the library to, at least, be made aware of studies and recommendations relating to the Balme Library.

Source: UG
Analytical Techniques for Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) and clinical toxicology (CT) studies play significant roles in understanding and controlling the observed variabilities in therapeutic response of administered drug products, as well as proffering measures to improve the safety and efficacy of treatments that patients receive. However, the optimization of patient care through TDM continues to remain a challenge in many health jurisdictions despite the numerous advancements and progress in analytical techniques and technology. The practice of TDM and CT in the optimization of patient care is still evolving and requires a myriad of technical and material resources to achieve the needed optimal health outcomes. One of the critical elements in this endeavour is the availability of analytical techniques that are sensitive, cost effective, and high performing in terms of accuracy and precision and also possess seamless workflow. This chapter, thus, discusses the various high-throughput analytical techniques employed in TDM and CT, as well as the challenges associated with their respective applications as reported in the literature. It must be emphasized that consideration for a suitable analytical method for TDM and CT comes with careful planning and decision making. Factors to be considered include but are not limited to the availability of expertise (clinical and laboratory), equipment/instrument, the physicochemical nature of the target analyte (drug, metabolite, toxicant, or toxin), and the clinical situation presenting the need for TDM. Other important factors such as sample preparation and storage, analytical method development and validation, and interferences associated with matrix effect also require careful consideration in order to assure the reliability and quality of TDM or CT data needed for informed clinical decision.

Source: UG
Analyzing the effect of Akoben programme on the environmental performance of mining in Ghana: A case study of a gold mining company

This study assessed the impact of Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Akoben programme, a rating and disclosure tool which seeks to promote better environmental performance in the mining and manufacturing industries in Ghana. Using a case study approach, the Akoben audit report card for a mining company was analyzed over a three-year period (2009–2011) based on 7-criteria – legal requirements, hazardous on-site waste management, toxic emissions management, environmental monitoring and reporting, best practice environmental management, complaint management, and corporate social responsibility. Key stakeholders' perceptions of the programme's suitability were solicited from the Ghana Chamber of Mines, EPA, and the mining company. Findings revealed that overall environmental performance over the three-year period under review was poor (2009 – 56.6%; 2010 – 65.6%; 2011 – 59.1%) with none of the years meeting the expected minimum limit, with the exception of legal requirements and corporate social responsibilities; the company failed in all other criteria. Specifically, both toxic and non-toxic waste emission discharges were major concerns as toxic parameters, such as for Arsenic, pH and Cyanide, were exceeded. Environmental monitoring and reporting was also a problem for the company. Stakeholders identified inadequate publicity, an absence of legal backing, and a lack of incentives for outstanding performances as the main weaknesses of the programme. Despite this, the stakeholders acknowledge the fact that the Akoben programme has improved the environmental performance of the mining companies because it puts their operations in check, although more can yet be achieved with regards environmental sustainability with this programme, if adequate measures including legal backing are put in place to ensure its continuity.

Source: UG
Analyzing time-varying tail dependence between leveraged loan and debt markets in the U.S. economy

This study analyzes the time-varying dependence between U.S. leveraged loan and debt markets within a highly linked financial system using a quantile-based, time-varying connectedness framework to determine the hedging benefits of leveraged loans for financial investors at various quarters. Based on daily closing price data from November From October 28, 2008, to October 3, 2023, the evidence demonstrates considerable (moderate) spillovers across the leveraged loan and debt markets for severe (normal) occurrences, with additional results indicating symmetric interaction. In terms of risk spillover, we also affirm the dominance of short-term fixed-income instruments over leveraged loans and long-term bonds. These findings indicate that no hedging or diversification occurred among the investigated markets.

Source: UG
Anaphora in Akan: in M. E. Kropp Dakubu, G. Akanlig-Pare, E. Kweku Osam &amp; Kofi K. Saah, (editors)

The paper examines the devices that the Akan language uses to express anaphoric relations, especially, such notions as ‘X acts on X’ (reflexive), ‘Y acts on X and X acts on Y’ (reciprocal) and other relationships involving nominals in particular local domains that result in construing them as having the same referent.

Source: UG