ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Decentralisation and Management of Human Resource for Health in the Health System of Ghana: A Decision Space Analysis

Background: The implications of decentralisation on human resource for health management has not received adequate research attention despite the presupposition that the concept of decentralisation leads to the transfer of management authority and discretion for human resource management from national levels to subnational levels. This study aims at investigating the extent to which decentralisation practice transfers management autonomy and discretion to subnational units, and the effect of the level of decision space on human resource management in the health sector. Methods: A mixed methods study design was adopted employing a cross-sectional survey and a document analysis. The respondents included health managers from the regional, district and hospital administrations as well as facility managers from the community-based health planning and services zones. A decision space framework was employed to measure management autonomy and discretion at various management levels of the study region. For the quantitative data, descriptive statistical analysis was used to analyse and report the data whilst the qualitative data was contentanalysed. Results: The study reported that in practice, management authority for core human resource functions such as recruitment, remuneration, personnel training and development are centralised rather than transferred to the subnational units. It further reveals that authority diminishes along the management continuum from the national to the community level. Decentralisation was however found to have led to greater autonomy in technical supervision and performance appraisal. The study also reported the existence of discrepancy between the wide decision space for performance assessment through technical supervision and performance appraisal exercised by managers at the subnational level and a rather limited discretion for providing incentives or rewards to staff. Conclusion: The practice of decentralisation in the Ghanaian health sector is more apparent than real. The limited autonomy and discretion in the management of human resource at the subnational units have potential adverse implications on effective recruitment, retention, development and distribution of health personnel. Therefore, further decision space is required at the subnational level to enhance effective and efficient management of human resource to attain the health sector objectives.

Source: UG
Decentralisation and Poverty Reduction in the Gomoa District of Ghana

This paper examined the effect of decentralization on poverty reduction in the Gomoa district of Ghana. The perception of various stakeholders of poverty shows clearly the multi-dimensional nature of poverty. Unemployment and lack of support for income generating activities were considered by respondents as one of the main underlying causes of poverty. The paper then assessed the role of the Gomoa District Assembly, the local government body, in supporting income generating activities in the district. The conclusion was that the District Assembly was incapacitated in this respect and factors accounting for this discussed.

Source: UG
Decentralised Governance, Access to Social Services and Poverty Reduction in the Gomoa District, Ghana

Decentralised governance has become a very important concept in development administration, particularly in the less developed countries, in recent decades. Mixed results of the impact of decentralization on poverty reduction have been recorded in the development literature. Ghana has a fairly well established decentralised framework for development, which is the main medium for implementing poverty reduction programmes in the country. Using two attributes of decentralised governance – participation and responsiveness – and using the Gomoa district as a case study, this article addresses the question of whether the implementation of decentralised governance has had any positive impact on the delivery of and communities’ access to social services (education, health, water and sanitation) and therefore on poverty reduction. The article demonstrates that while there have been improvements in some areas, other areas remain problematic. The article concludes that the Gomoa district might not have achieved even these modest improvements in access to social services without decentralised governance, but that revenue mobilisation remains a serious problem hampering the ability of decentralised government in Ghana to deliver social services.

Source: UG
Decentralization &amp; poverty reduction

Introduction Decentralization has been considered by many as one of the most important strategies on the agenda of public sector reform. This is because donors and governments in sub-Saharan Africa have considered decentralization as a strategy that will bring service delivery closer to consumers, improve the responsiveness of the central government to public demands and thereby reduce poverty, improve the efficiency and quality of public services and empower lower units to feel more involved and in control. In this connection, decentralization is linked to the concept of subsidiarity, that is, making decisions at the lowest feasible level. It is also meant to reduce overload and congestion at the centre and speed up operational decision-making and implementation by minimizing the bottlenecks associated with over-centralization of powers and functions at just one or two points in the hierarchy of a public service organization or ministry; in other words, greater efficiency of public management, arising from improved co-ordination and shorter decision-making hierarchies (‘less bureaucracy’), and improvements in political stability through the legitimization of differences in local needs and perspectives (pluralism). Consequently, decentralization seeks to increase the operational autonomy of line managers and agencies, leaving only broad policy guidelines to be worked out at the centre (Smith, 1985; Rondinelli et al., 1989; Mawhood, 1993; Crook and Manor, 1998; Wunsch and Olowu, 1995; Olowu and Wunsch, 2004). © James Currey Ltd 2007.

Source: UG
Decentralization and Citizens’ Participation in Local Governance: Does Trust and Transparency Matter? – An Empirical Study

The wind of change that swept across the African continent and other developing countries ensuingly engendered the need to institute measures that would bring government to the people’s doorstep. This led to the prioritization and touting of decentralization. Against the backdrop of the proximate reason to accelerate public access to government, the express expectation was that a germane space would be created to enhance participation. However, the validity of this postulation is yet to be realized. The study, therefore, set out to examine the relationship between decentralization and people’s participation, with the mediating role of trust and transparency. Results of data analysis (561 respondents), using the structural equation modelling technique, established not only the appropriateness of the proposed study model, but also, the imperativeness of the trust and transparency to decentralization and participation. The implications of the study are delineated for effective policy and practice.

Source: UG
Decentralization and development in Ghana's Fourth Republic

This article demonstrates how decentralization can lead to development at the local level, albeit in moderate form. Analyz ing data collected from 660 respondents based on face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions, and personal observations, we found that the transfer of power and resources to the district assemblies (DAs) has led to the provision of critical social amenities such as roads, education, health-care facilities, and management of environmental sanitation at the sub-national level. Respondents are satisfied with the provision of these social amenities because they have led to relative improve ments in their basic social needs. Yet, delays and the accumu lation of arrears associated with the transfers of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) have deprived the DAs of the needed revenue to deliver far-reaching social services to the people. The grant of more financial autonomy to the DAs and measures to curtail the overbearing influence of the central government over the administration of the DACF will enhance their capacity to deliver substantial development projects to accentuate the transformation of the rural districts

Source: UG
Decentralized development planning and fragmentation of regional development in Ghana: The case of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area

Ghana implemented a decentralized development planning system in 1988. This has resulted in the proliferation of ‘independent’ and ‘autonomous’ local government areas. However, the practice of constantly creating new local government areas of jurisdiction has resulted in a fragmentation of large metropolitan areas. More importantly, while the existing Local Government Act calls for adjoining local government areas to work hand-in-hand, there is no enabling legislation to foster such cooperation among municipal and metropolitan authorities. Using the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) as a case study, this paper argues that the proliferation of autonomous local government areas within the context of urban sprawl and other challenges have inhibited metropolitan-wide development planning.

Source: UG
Decentralized governance and poverty reduction at the local level in Ghana

This article discusses the impact, if any, of decentralized governance on poverty reduction in Ghana. Firstly, the article draws a link between decentralized governance and poverty reduction. Second, it identifies the objectives of decentralized governance in Ghana. Thirdly, the article assesses the impact of decentralized governance on poverty reduction in Ghana using the following indicators: (a) responsiveness to the needs of the poor; (b) levels and quality of representation and participation of the poor; (c) social and economic outcomes such as the promotion of human development, social equity, increase in incomes and spatial or interregional equality; and (d) accountability and communication efforts of officials to the poor. Lastly, the article highlights some of the lessons learned and their implications for decentralized governance and poverty reduction.

Source: UG
Deciphering the targets of retroviral protease inhibitors in Plasmodium berghei

Retroviral protease inhibitors (RPIs) such as lopinavir (LP) and saquinavir (SQ) are active against Plasmodium parasites. However, the exact molecular target(s) for these RPIs in the Plasmodium parasites remains poorly understood. We hypothesised that LP and SQ suppress parasite growth through inhibition of aspartyl proteases. Using reverse genetics approach, we embarked on separately generating knockout (KO) parasite lines lacking Plasmepsin 4 (PM4), PM7, PM8, or DNA damage-inducible protein 1 (Ddi1) in the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei ANKA. We then tested the suppressive profiles of the LP/Ritonavir (LP/RT) and SQ/RT as well as antimalarials; Amodiaquine (AQ) and Piperaquine (PQ) against the KO parasites in the standard 4-day suppressive test. The Ddi1 gene proved refractory to deletion suggesting that the gene is essential for the growth of the asexual blood stage parasites. Our results revealed that deletion of PM4 significantly reduces normal parasite growth rate phenotype (P = 0.003). Unlike PM4_KO parasites which were less susceptible to LP and SQ (P = 0.036, P = 0.030), the suppressive profiles for PM7_KO and PM8_KO parasites were comparable to those for the WT parasites. This finding suggests a potential role of PM4 in the LP and SQ action. On further analysis, modelling and molecular docking studies revealed that both LP and SQ displayed high binding affinities (-6.3 kcal/mol to -10.3 kcal/mol) towards the Plasmodium aspartyl proteases. We concluded that PM4 plays a vital role in assuring asexual stage parasite fitness and might be mediating LP and SQ action. The essential nature of the Ddi1 gene warrants further studies to evaluate its role in the parasite asexual blood stage growth as well as a possible target for the RPIs.

Source: UG
A decision making model for selecting start-up businesses in a government venture capital scheme

urpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose an intuitionistic fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) multi-criteria decision making method for the selection of start-up businesses in a government venture capital (GVC) scheme. Most GVC funded start-ups fail or underperform compared to those funded by private VCs due to a number of reasons including lack of transparency and unfairness in the selection process. By its design, the proposed method is able to increase transparency and reduce the influence of bias in GVC start-up selection processes. The proposed method also models uncertainty in the selection criteria using fuzzy set theory that mirrors the natural human decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method first presents a set of criteria relevant to the selection of early stage but high-potential start-ups in a GVC financing scheme. These criteria are then analyzed using the TOPSIS method in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment. The intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging Operator is used to aggregate ratings of decision makers. A numerical example of how the proposed method could be used in GVC start-up candidate selection in a highly competitive GVC scheme is provided. Findings – The methodology adopted increases fairness and transparency in the selection of start-up businesses for fund support in a government-run VC scheme. The criteria set proposed is ideal for selecting start-up businesses in a government controlled VC scheme. The decision-making framework demonstrates how uncertainty in the selection criteria are efficiently modelled with the TOPSIS method. Practical implications – As GVC schemes increase around the world, and concerns about failure and underperformance of GVC funded start-ups increase, the proposed method could help bring formalism and ensure the selection of start-ups with high potential for success. Originality/value – The framework designs relevant sets of criteria for a selection problem, demonstrates the use of extended TOPSIS method in intuitionistic fuzzy sets and apply the proposed method in an area that has not been considered before. Additionally, it demonstrates how intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS could be carried out in a real decision-making application setting.

Source: UG
A decision making model for selecting start-up businesses in a government venture capital scheme

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose an intuitionistic fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) multi-criteria decision making method for the selection of start-up businesses in a government venture capital (GVC) scheme. Most GVC funded start-ups fail or underperform compared to those funded by private VCs due to a number of reasons including lack of transparency and unfairness in the selection process. By its design, the proposed method is able to increase transparency and reduce the influence of bias in GVC start-up selection processes. The proposed method also models uncertainty in the selection criteria using fuzzy set theory that mirrors the natural human decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method first presents a set of criteria relevant to the selection of early stage but high-potential start-ups in a GVC financing scheme. These criteria are then analyzed using the TOPSIS method in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment. The intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging Operator is used to aggregate ratings of decision makers. A numerical example of how the proposed method could be used in GVC start-up candidate selection in a highly competitive GVC scheme is provided. Findings – The methodology adopted increases fairness and transparency in the selection of start-up businesses for fund support in a government-run VC scheme. The criteria set proposed is ideal for selecting start-up businesses in a government controlled VC scheme. The decision-making framework demonstrates how uncertainty in the selection criteria are efficiently modelled with the TOPSIS method. Practical implications – As GVC schemes increase around the world, and concerns about failure and underperformance of GVC funded start-ups increase, the proposed method could help bring formalism and ensure the selection of start-ups with high potential for success. Originality/value – The framework designs relevant sets of criteria for a selection problem, demonstrates the use of extended TOPSIS method in intuitionistic fuzzy sets and apply the proposed method in an area that has not been considered before. Additionally, it demonstrates how intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS could be carried out in a real decision-making application setting.

Source: UG
Decision Support System (DSS) for Fraud Detection in Health Insurance Claims Using Genetic Support Vector Machines (GSVMs)

Fraud in health insurance claims has become a significant problem whose rampant growth has deeply affected the global delivery of health services. In addition to financial losses incurred, patients who genuinely need medical care suffer because service providers are not paid on time as a result of delays in the manual vetting of their claims and are therefore unwilling to continue offering their services. Health insurance claims fraud is committed through service providers, insurance subscribers, and insurance companies. (e need for the development of a decision support system (DSS) for accurate, automated claim processing to offset the attendant challenges faced by the National Health Insurance Scheme cannot be overstated. (is paper utilized the National Health Insurance Scheme claims dataset obtained from hospitals in Ghana for detecting health insurance fraud and other anomalies. Genetic support vector machines (GSVMs), a novel hybridized data mining and statistical machine learning tool, which provide a set of sophisticated algorithms for the automatic detection of fraudulent claims in these health insurance databases are used.(eexperimental results have proven that the GSVM possessed better detection and classification performance when applied using SVM kernel classifiers. (ree GSVM classifiers were evaluated and their results compared. Experimental results show a significant reduction in computational time on claims processing while increasing classification accuracy via the various SVM classifiers (linear (80.67%), polynomial (81.22%), and radial basis function (RBF) kernel (87.91%).

Source: UG
Decision support system for designing sustainable multi-stakeholder networks of grain storage facilities in developing countries

Governments in developing countries often face the daunting task of designing a network of grain storage facilities to simultaneously benefit the various stakeholders (farmers, market traders, exporters, etc.) in the grain supply chain irrespective of the conflicting objectives of these stakeholders. Existing decision support systems either require data that are unavailable in most developing countries or have objectives irrelevant in the context of developing countries. This paper therefore develops a decision support system that integrates transportation, pseudo p-median, forecasting and goal programming models to optimally design networks of grain storage facilities to reduce the transportation cost of respective stakeholders. The effectiveness of the proposed decision support system has been demonstrated by comparing phantom networks developed with the decision support system to the Government of Ghana’s network of 48 grain storage facilities.

Source: UG
Decision support tools for site-specific fertilizer recommendations and agricultural planning in selected countries in sub-Sahara Africa

Recommendations and decisions of crop management in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are often based on traditional field experimentation. This usually ignores the variability of production factors in space and time, and hence invalidates such decisions and recommendations outside of the experimental sites. Yet, the use of alternative or complementary decision support approaches such as crop modelling is limited. In this paper, we reviewed the state of the use of crop modelling in informing site specific fertilizer recommendations in some countries in SSA. Even though nitrogen fertilizer recommendations in most countries across Africa are blanket, the limited employment of models show that optimum nitrogen application should be differentiated according to soil types, management and climate. A number of studies reported on increased fertilizer use efficiency and reduced crop production risks with the use of Decision Support Tools (DST). The review also showed that the gross limitation of the use of models as agricultural decision-making tools in SSA could be attributed to factors such as low capacity due to limited training opportunities, and the general lack of support from national governments for model development and application for policy formulation. Proposals identified to overcome these limitations include (1) introduction of the science of DST in the curricula at the tertiary level, (2) encouragement and support for the adoption of model use by governmental and non-governmental organizations as additional tools for decision making and (3) simplifying DSTs to facilitate their use by non-scientific audience to scale uptake and use for farm management. © Springer International Publishing AG 2018.

Source: UG
The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Women’s Right in Ghana: A Study of the Implementation of the 2007 Domestic Violence Act

Domestic Violence (DV) is a serious issue that knows no geographical boundaries. It impacts men, women and girls across all societies with no distinction of culture, class, age, ethnicity, socio-economic or religious affiliations. The ‘Declaration on the Elimination of all forms of Violence against Women’ (DEVAW) was adopted in 1993 following the need to establish specific international instrument to tackle Gender Based Violence (GBV). Since then, many countries have passed legislations towards protecting and promoting women’s right. In Ghana, the most notable instrument is the 2007 Domestic Violence Act (DVA) in compliance to its international obligations. After a decade of passing the DVA in Ghana, the study assesses the extent to which the DVA is implemented. The study targeted a total of sixty (60) respondents comprising; 30 persons who have experienced DV; twenty (20) officials from the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) and ten (10) personnel from selected NGOs using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The findings showed that, although Ghana has developed institutions and policies to tackle GBV, DV persists in the country. This has been attributed to several challenges including patriarchal cultural perceptions, police knowledge about the provisions of international women’s rights instruments and the lack of resources for key institutions like DOVVSU. To achieve compliance, Ghana and stakeholders involved in the implementation of the DVA must as a matter of urgency, put in place mechanisms such as those recommended in this study to address these challenges.

Source: UG