ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
The Influx of Pharmaceutical Products as a Transnational Security Threat to Ghana.

The study sought to find out the channels through which counterfeit and sub-standard drugs end up in Ghana and the implications it has on the country. In addition, the study sought to investigate on the procedures used to dispose of counterfeit, expired and sub-standard drug s. This has led to stringent action been taken by the Food and Drugs Authority to individual who are being caught handling these pharmaceutical products (counterfeit and sub-standard drugs).The study involved sample size of 6 respondents who were purposely selected and interviewed. It was found that most of these respondents were aware of counterfeit, sub-standard drugs and expired drugs. The study found that porous borders, inadequate resource and skilled personnel are contributing factors to the influx of these pharmaceutical products to the country. The study established that some of the challenges that lead to the influx include lack of well-planned orderly operations; inadequate allocation of resources by government. There is the need for the government to support these agencies financially to help them execute their strategies in curbing the issue.

Source: UG
Informal e-waste recycling and plasma levels of non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (NDL-PCBs) – A cross-sectional study at Agbogbloshie, Ghana

Informal e-waste recycling leads to a contamination of the workerswith several hazardous substances, in particular heavymetals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) belong to the group of POPs and are suspected to be associatedwith adverse health effects. In particular lower chlorinated PCBs, such as the congeners PCB 28 and PCB 52 are amarker of occupational exposure. The aimof our studywas to assess the occupational PCB exposure in e-waste workers in relation to their specific recycling task (e.g. dismantling, burning). Altogether, n = 88 e-waste workers and n = 196 control subjects have been included in this study. All plasma participant's samples were evaluated for the PCB congeners PCB 28, 52, 101, 138, 153, 180 and sum of NDL-indicator congeners by human biomonitoring. A significant difference could be detected for the lower chlorinated PCB congeners (PCB 28, 52, and 101) for e-waste workers in comparison to the control group. Analyzing specific recycling tasks,workerswho dismantle and thosewho burn e-waste showed the highest plasma levels of PCB 28 and 52. In conclusion, e-waste workers showed occupational related elevated PCB levels. Although those levels did not exceed the BAT value,workerswere contaminatedwith PCBs during their task.Occupational health and safety measure are therefore necessary to protect the worker's health.

Source: UG
The informal economy is an employer, a nuisance, and a goldmine: Multiple representations of and responses to informality in Accra, Ghana

An analysis of multiple sources of evidence, including field interviews and non-participant observation, shows that the informal economy in Accra, Ghana has a complex relationship with the state, not only as a nuisance or employer, but also as an avenue to reward and punish political supporters and opponents. Although informal people are regularly being forcibly evicted, they are not merely "on the run." Rather, they, in turn, are regularly engaging the state in multiple ways to maintain or reclaim urban space, a struggle that is sometimes mediated by civil society organizations acting as a "third way." Being a drama that benefits aspects of the state, such as the government, it is unlikely to end soon without greater struggle against the state. © 2011 The Institute, Inc.

Source: UG
Informal Economy Monitoring Study: Street Vendors in Accra, Ghana

Recent statistics show the majority of workers in developing countries earn their livelihoods in the informal economy. The Informal Economy Monitoring Study (IEMS) is a qualitative and quantitative study designed to evaluate the reality for these workers’ lives. With research conducted over three years in 10 cities, the IEMS aims to provide credible, grounded evidence of the range of driving forces, both positive and negative, that affect conditions of work in the informal economy over time. Informal workers and their membership-based organizations (MBOs) are at the centre of the analysis.

Source: UG
‘Informal Exceptionalism?’ Labour Migrants’ Creative Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Livelihoods in Accra, Ghana

Intra- and inter-regional migration is widely described. Prior studies have attribute varied reasons for this development including the quest for greener pastures and unequal development in northern Ghana. What has escaped critical scrutiny is some migrants’ ability to escape extreme rural poverty, albeit in harsh urban environment. Such a missing gap can potentiate high policy failures, hence the need for academic attention. Using a mixed method, we focus on two informal daily livelihoods as exemplars – exceptionalism – in Accra. We see their embedded organisational vitality and dynamic networks as illuminating for good livelihood practices, proper city governance and fostering economic empowerment. We call on city authorities to take cognisance of such complexities and heterogeneity of production–labour relations, failure of which can spell doom for policies ostensibly initiated to curb migration, as they are likely to be underpinned by factual inaccuracies and may result in ill-fated interventions.

Source: UG
Informal Institutions and the State of Social Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper presents an institutional analysis of the social protection in sub-Saharan African countries and shows that because formal social security schemes in sub-Saharan African countries are limited in scope, informal institutional practices that derived their logic and legitimacy from familial and kinship relationships have become essential institutional rules that mediate interaction and social exchange in this issues area and beyond. This situation is exacerbated by the fact the recent institutional reforms such as structural adjustment and democratization in sub-Saharan Africa countries, but scholarly interest in the region prioritizes formal institutions without adequate attention to the role informal institutions play in shaping the incentive structures and choices of political actors and citizens. The paper also discusses the implications of the pervasiveness of informality in sub-Saharan African countries for broader socio-economic development and points to the need for greater attention to informal institutional analysis in the mainstream of comparative political analysis

Source: UG
Informal settlement and urban development discourse in the Global South: Evidence from Ghana

The growth of informal settlements across the Global South has generated concomitant empirical research, and research attention has focused on a different aspect of informal settlements. However, despite the plethora of literature in the growing field of informal settlements research, there is a paucity of research concerning the contribution of informal settlement dwellers to the economic development of the urban economy and the perception of informal settlement dwellers and their challenges, particularly in the context of many countries in Africa. The article contributes to filling this gap by examining the contribution of informal dwellers to urban economic development and the challenges they encounter in the process. Based on a case study involving In in-depth interviews and focus group discussions in Accra, Ghana, the authors found that despite the challenges confronting informal dwellers and their characteristics, they contributed to urban development through revenue generation, labour provision, and the creation of employment. Furthermore, the findings uncovered context-specific contributions of informal settlements to urban development that helped both policy actors and practitioners. The authors conclude that the findings imply that urban managers should focus on the settlers and recognize the contributions of informal settlements to urban development.

Source: UG
Informal-formal linkages in market and street trading in Accra

This paper investigates the ways in which linkages between the informal and formal segments of an economy may yield benefits to or impose costs upon informal workers, based on views of informal traders in Accra regarding their relationships with the formal economy and its institutions. The data are drawn from the Informal Economy Monitoring Study (IEMS), with a World Bank study of informal household enterprises providing context for the IEMS-Ghana study and a basis for interpretation of its ndings. Data from 15 focus groups and a survey of 150 traders from both central and non-central locations of Accra, Ghana, are analysed in terms of traders’ relationship to the value chain, non-go-vernment institutions, government and the macroeconomy. The last two are found to exert a strong, mostly negative inuence on informal operators, offset to some extent by support from member-based organizations and non-govern-mental organisations (NGOs). Access to loans from micronance institutions was an important inuence on traders’ work and was viewed both positively and negatively. Although there are few visible direct linkages between informal operators and formal rms, they are to some extent mutually interdependent as retailers and suppliers in the value chain. Taking advantage of the potential synergy in informal-formal linkages will require government and other actors to become more proactive in facilitating, rather than denying, infrastructure, sup-port services and adequate space for informal traders. The probability of such an outcome depends on the ability of informal traders to organise themselves.

Source: UG
Informalization, the informal economy and Urban women's livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa since the 1990s

Review books or articles provide a critical and constructive analysis of existing published literature in a field, through summary, analysis, and comparison, often identifying specific gaps or problems and providing recommendations for future research. These are considered as secondary literature since they generally do not present new data from the author's experimental work. Review articles can be of three types, broadly speaking: literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. It also the researcher to stay abreast of new literature in the field.

Source: UG
Information &amp; Communication Technology Adoption Among Adults in South Western Nigeria: An Assessment of Usage-Phobia Factors

Measures for predicting and explaining ICT adoption among different age groups have practical implications for educators, designers and vendors who would like to assess user preferences for new products. Studying how adults adopt and use technology is therefore premised on the fact that adults must keep up with technological advancements to be able to function effectively in the information age. Our investigation of factors affecting adult’s acceptance of ICT applications in South Western Nigeria is based on the Perceived Ease of Use (PEU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) constructs. Selected ICT products and applications such as web access (for commercial, educational and social purposes), cell phones, Ipods, ATMs and e-Banking Platforms were employed as usage parameters. A multi-item questionnaire for PEU and PU was pre-tested, validated and administered. Findings from the study showed that the fear of using technology is subsumed by the benefits accruable from usage. Results from the study also gave insights into subtle but important factors that create ICT-Phobia among adults. We conclude by recommending acceptable use environment that will provide positive experiences with ICT products and applications among the target group.

Source: UG
Information &amp; communication technology: The added value of technology

George T-M. Kwadzo explains how a project using GPS data connected Ghanaian farmers to new buyers and export markets, and improved the value chain for a range of commodities in the country. The project was set up to support farmers, export businesses, government departments and related agencies to document, manage and monitor distributed production systems. TIPCEE trained field officers, mostly agricultural extension officers, to use GPS receivers in the course of their routine work. When they visited farms, they noted the exact coordinates of the crops, along with the size of the farms and other relevant details. GPS coordinates act like an address for the farmers, and show buyers, exporters, and certification bodies exactly where farms and farmers associations are located - literally putting farmers on the world trade map. The project looked at who was already growing which crop and what university studies or other research existed on it.

Source: UG
“Information access and evaluation skills of secondary school students in Ghana”

Information Literacy (IL) is a necessary skill needed by students to survive in the dynamic information environment of the 21 st century. This study explored the IL skil ls of secondary school students in Ghana with specific focus on students’ abilities in finding and evaluating information. The study was conducted in two “first - class” secondary schools in the Kumasi Metropolis of the Ashanti Region of Ghana; Opoku Ware Se nior High School and Yaa Asantewaa Girls’ Senior High School. A survey instrument was developed to assess the skills of the students in that regard. Questionnaires were distributed to an overall sample size of one hundred and seventy (170) students in the two schools. In addition, four teaching staff of the schools were also interviewed to corroborate the findings from the students. The findings revealed that students in the two schools lack the ability to effectively access information for their academic w ork. The study also discovered that students in the participating schools lack the basic skills to differentiate good information from bad ones. The study recommends, among others, the integration of IL into the secondary school curriculum in Ghana; and co llaboration between librarians, teaching staff and the Ghana Education Service to promote IL among students to promote lifelong learning.

Source: UG
Information and Communication Technologies and Agricultural Production: New Evidence from Africa

While information and communication technologies (ICT) have proven to be useful in boosting agricultural production and productivity, regardless of the geographical location, much of the discussion on ICT and their impact focus on the global north, with deficient literature on the global south. The limited account of the global south shows mixed conclusions on the impact of information and communication technologies on agricultural production, with most studies focusing on crop production, as a proxy for agricultural production, leaving out livestock production. Animated by this concern, this article explores the impact of ICTs on agricultural production (crop and livestock) in Africa using panel data from 32 African countries and the panel autoregressive distributed lag model as the estimation technique. We find that individuals using internet significantly increased crop production in the long run. Specifically, a percentage increase in internet patronage increases crop production by 0.071% but significantly decreases the livestock production index, both in the short and long run. Mobile phone subscriptions had a significant negative impact on crop production in the long run but had a significant positive impact on livestock production in the long run. Fixed phone subscriptions significantly increased crop production in the long run but significantly decreased livestock production index in the long run. The findings show bidirectional causality between crop production and internet patronage, livestock production and individuals using internet, crop production and mobile cellular subscription, crop production and net national income, and rural population and both crop and livestock production. We recommend that governments in Africa increase funding investment in digital technologies to foster increased agricultural production while addressing structural challenges that constrain increased access to digital agricultural technologies. It might be useful if governments in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) incentivize the telecommunication companies to extend digital coverage to rural areas through tax rebates and holidays to encourage rural inclusion in the digital space to bridge the digital divide.

Source: UG
Information and communication technology availability, access and use by Agricultural Extension Agents and Farmers in Dangme East Region

Ghana’s agricultural extension has not experienced substantial chance in its mode of information dissemination. This study seeks to examine the extent of access and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs) and farmers and how they harness their potentials in their agricultural activities. Dangme East District in South-East Ghana was purposively selected for this study. A multi-stage cluster sampling procedure was used to randomly select 120 small scale farmers and 21 AEAs from three villages in the three agricultural zones in the district. Data was collected using structured questionnaires and focus group discussions. Results showed that apart from computer and Internet which were not available, all AEAs and most farmers have personal access to mobile phone, television and radio which they use to source and communicate agricultural information. However, for decisions with regard to production, input acquisition up to marketing of farm produce, farmers to a large extent depend more on non-ICT sources. On the other hand, for meteorological information, farmers depend more on radio, television and mobile phone. There was significant relationship p=(0.00) and 0.042) between farmers extent of access to mobile phone and radio and its use in agricultural activities. Also, there was s significant different p=(0.03) between extents of access to T.V. and how often farmers used it in their agricultural activities. There is a great scope and potential for agricultural extension service to explore the use of television, radio and mobile phone to enhance farmers’ access to timely agricultural information.

Source: UG
Information behaviour of prison inmates in Ghana

Abstract Information provision and services in prisons have been demonstrated to be a critical component of successful rehabilitation and reintegration. The study therefore examined the information behaviour of inmates in Ghana prisons with the aim of understanding their information needs, sources and challenges towards improving the information provision and services available in Ghana prisons. In all, qualitative data were collected from 27 participants comprising 19 inmates and eight Correctional Officers from four prisons in Ghana: Ankaful Maximum Security, Nsawam Medium Security, Kumasi Central and Nsawam Female prisons. The study found that inmates had information needs related to welfare, legal, support among others and it was evident that a number of their information needs were not met. The study further revealed poor library systems in Ghana prisons and inmates’ inability to access modern ICT tools as some of the challenges in accessing information in Ghana prisons. The study recommends the need for stakeholders and policy makers to invest in information provisions and services in Ghana prisons.

Source: UG
Information gaps in surveillance data and effects on the Ghanaian response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa

Background: Complete and accurate information on disease occurrence is crucial for effective public health response to disease outbreaks. In response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, Ghana intensified surveillance for the disease across the country. However, the case definition provided by the Ministry of Health was not uniformly applied at all reporting health facilities.Objective: This paper analyses the accompanying Case Record Forms (CRFs) submitted to Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research to determine its completeness and appropriateness for instituting an effective response to the epidemic.Methods: We determined the proportions of completeness in reporting for all criteria provided by the MOH for the clinical diagnosis of Ebola. New indicators were generated to measure the completeness of each variable. Tables and graphs of completeness of indicators were produced and presented.Results: Of the 156 samples, 69% were from males. Approximately 4.5% had no record for age. The date of specimen collection was filled for 96%; 34.6% (54) did not have date of onset of symptoms. In 37.8% (59) of cases, location was blank. In 12% of cases, no symptoms were recorded and about 30% had no record of fever. Travel history, especially to affected areas, was missing for 40.4%.Conclusions: Gaps on CRFs can significantly reduce the utility of results of laboratory analysis for outbreak control. Although all the samples analysed were negative for Ebola Virus, the high proportion of missing data on the forms should be a source of concern. We recommend that frontline health staff be trained on the importance of capturing all information required on the form.Source of funding: The funding for the analysis of suspected samples were provided partially by Ghana Health Servce and research funding from Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research.

Source: UG
Information Literacy among Post Graduate Students of the University of Ghana

Information has become so important for decision making in today's world. The problem of information used to be scarcity of information but in the current century it has become abundance of information. This is as a result of the development of various media of information, for example information from books and the internet. The development of information communication and technologies has escalated the problem of information that is, too much information for people to choose from for decision making. Information literacy is the surest way of helping solve the problem of choosing the right information from the abundance of information from various media. The purpose of the study is to investigate the information literacy levels among post graduate students of tertiary institutions, specifically the University of Ghana. The survey method was used to collect data for the study. The number of students involved was 151 in number giving an overall response rate of 56.98%. The variables considered in this study include: concept identification, search strategies, search tools, evaluation of information and the legal and ethical use of information. Most students knew how to identify concepts whereas most of them were not skilled in the use of search strategies, search tools and the evaluation of information. However, some of them knew about copyright issues. This result shows that the majority of the post graduate students are not information literate. The study recommends that information literacy education should be introduced into the curricular of the University of Ghana as a full course which needs to be credit bearing. Information literacy should also be integrated into the research method course that is offered by every department and school. More library professionals should be employed to teach the course more effectively and efficiently.

Source: UG