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The purpose of this paper is to examine women farmers' access to credit from rural banks (RBs) in the Upper East region of Ghana. The paper examines the nature of credit supply by the RBs to their customers and the proportion that goes to women over a ten year period. It proposes the modelling of socio‐economic, technical and institutional factors influencing women farmers' access to credit from financial institutions in general and rural banks (RBs) in particular. The paper aims to expand the frontiers of rural and agricultural financing as well as the integration of gender interest in the financial sectors of developing countries.

In total, 200 women farmers were randomly selected and information on socio‐economic, technical and institutional issues solicited from them. Ratio analyses were carried out and the logistic regression used to model the socio‐economic, technical and institutional factors that have influence on access to credit from RBs by women farmers.

The paper provides empirical evidence of close gender parity in terms of credit supply by RBs in Ghana. About 44 per cent of the credit portfolios of RBs in Ghana go to women and the remaining 56 per cent goes to men. Education, application procedures, access to land, income level, farm size, membership to economic associations, savings, type of crop grown, interest rate and distance to RBs are the socio‐economic, technical and institutional factors that influence women farmers' access to credit.

The paper is limited to only women farmers. There is the need for further research that considers men and women so as to establish whether or not there is gender insensitivity by financial institutions in Ghana and other developing countries.

This paper provides empirical implications for the development of a vibrant financial sector in developing countries that provide equal access to men and women, rural and urban dwellers as well as actors in the formal and informal sectors.

This paper brings to light the issues of access to productive resources such as production credit by women in developing countries, particularly Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the proximity of study centres to the students of College of Distance Education, University of Cape Coast (CoDE/UCC) and whether further studies of distance learners who were teachers and employees could lead to absenteeism in their workplaces.

A sequential explanatory strategy was used. A self-administered questionnaire and unstructured interviews as well as observation guides were employed to collect data from 2,077 students pursuing business and education programmes of CoDE in all study centres across Ghana. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics and pattern matching of content analysis.

The study found that few teachers and other workers pursuing the distance education do absent themselves from the workplace or classroom on Fridays preceding their face-to-face session because they embarked on their journey to the study centres on Friday morning. Some teachers also absented themselves from work on Mondays after face-to-face sessions for a lack of means of transport on Sunday after lessons. The absenteeism of these respondents directly and indirectly affected their employers, students and customers.

It was therefore recommended that management of CoDE/UCC should open more study centres in all the regions especially Western, Ashanti, Upper East, Northern and Upper West Regions to reduce number of hours spent by students to their study centres and consider introducing the business programmes at the existing district centres to reduce average distance covered by these students to commute from their places of work to their respective centres in the regional capitals. It was also recommended that online/electronic learning and audio versions (impersonal communication) of the study modules should be introduced so that students would not necessary have to travel to the study centre to participate in lectures/face-to-face sessions.

The findings of this study will help managers and administrators of both public and private distance educational providers. In addition to providing basis and areas for establishing study centres for geographical proximity, findings of the study should prove helpful for designing and delivering electronic and audio versions of distance education modules to reduce the level of absenteeism in workplace for the students.

The purpose of this paper is to assess farmers’ willingness to participate and pay for weather-based index insurance in the Upper East Region of Ghana, and what factors influence the participation and purchase of crop insurance schemes.

A survey of 200 farmers in the region was carried out in 2018 to measure demographic information, farm characteristics, risks and risk-management practices and attitudes to crop insurance programs. The survey also captured maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for crop insurance. The double-bounded contingent valuation technique was used to estimate the WTP for crop insurance and the variables that affected WTP.

Farmers, in general, had an indifferent attitude to crop insurance in the region, but were willing to participate in the crop insurance programme, and were willing to pay between 7.5 and 12.5 per cent of the cost of growing maize as a premium for crop insurance. Demographic and economic variables did not impact WTP, but attitude towards crop insurance, farm diversification and frequency of drought negatively impacted on the WTP for crop insurance.

Education programs could be undertaken to improve the attitude and understanding towards crop insurance, as some farmers perceived the programme as not trustworthy, and others did not truly understand the operation of the programme.

Drought can have a significant impact on household welfare, particularly in food insecure countries or regions. Crop insurance can provide a method of securing income for farmers allowing them to purchase food rather than other choices, such as removing children from education to reduce household expenses, improving the long-term welfare of the farm household.

This paper considers willingness to participate and WTP for a crop insurance programme in Ghana, it is one of a small number of papers that consider attitude to, and willingness to participate and WTP for crop insurance in developing countries. The value of the research is the expanded understanding of farmer attitude to crop insurance and their lack of knowledge of crop insurance operations.

The authors examine the factors influencing membership in farmer organizations (FO) and their effects on the decision to adopt farm technologies by rice farmers in Ghana.

This study uses a farm survey of 900 households from Northern Ghana and a recursive bivariate probit (RBP) model that accounts for selection bias and endogeneity.

The results indicate that the household head’s decision to adopt machinery and row planting increases by 38.4 and 25.3%, respectively, upon joining a farmer organization. Membership in farmer organization is positively influenced by off-farm income, asset value, farmer organization location and farmer location in Upper West region but negatively by males, age and total livestock units owned. Machinery adoption is positively influenced by membership in farmer organizations and respondent being male but negatively influenced by the years of schooling, farm size, farm distance and location of a farmer in Ghana's Upper East and West regions. Similarly, row planting adoption is positively influenced by membership in farmers' organization but adversely by farm size, farm distance and a farmer's location in Upper East region of Ghana.

It can be concluded that membership in farmers' organizations significantly impacts farm household head’s decision to adopt machinery and row planting in rice production, which potentially enhance crop productivity.

These results show the importance of agricultural stakeholders in encouraging the formation and strengthening of farmer organizations to support the adoption of modern farming technologies.

Developing literature has demonstrated that farmer organizations promote the adoption of agricultural innovations. However, most of these studies have concentrated on conventional agricultural innovations and have used methods that fail to account for potential selection bias. This paper fills this important gap.

The purpose of this paper is to find out how financial capital from rural banks is contributing to the livelihoods development of women farmers who constitute the most vulnerable and disadvantaged group in Ghana and other developing countries.

Women farmers were randomly sampled, resulting in 100 beneficiary and 100 non‐beneficiary women farmers who were used for the study. The incomes of women farmers were compared and the factors influencing income earnings estimated using simple regressing analysis.

Financial capital from rural banks was found to have positive contributions to the livelihood development of the women farmers and the poor in general. Whereas, the beneficiary women farmers had significant improvement in their access to health care, education and increased income among others, the non‐beneficiaries only had marginal improvements.

Women farmers do not keep accurate records on their production activities and had to rely on their memories to give costs of production and outputs obtained. This might have slightly affected the results.

Governments and development partners in third world countries should integrate the provision of financial capital in their development policy formulations. This is critical for the attainment of the millennium development goals (MDGs), especially on the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger as well as gender equality and empowerment.

This research paper brings to light the fact that financial capital is an important tool that can be used to turn life around for poor families and individuals in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. It demonstrates how financial capital is critical for the attainment of the MDGs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between dietary diversity and haemoglobin concentration of women of reproductive age (WRA), 15−49 years in the Binduri District, of the Upper East Region (UER) of Ghana.

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 153 non-pregnant, non-lactating WRA from three randomly selected communities in the Binduri District of the UER of Ghana. Socio-demographic information, 24-h dietary recall and minimum dietary diversity scores (DDS) of the women were obtained using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Haemoglobin concentration of the participants was measured by finger prick using Hemocue 301 Analyzer and classified according to WHO standards. Linear regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between DDS and haemoglobin concentrations of the participants.

Total study participants were 153 with mean age of 32.8 ± 8.7 years. Anaemia prevalence of 66.7% and a mean DDS of 4.0 ± 1.2 was recorded. DDS was found to be a strong predictor of haemoglobin concentration (p = 0.00, R² = 0.48).

Interventions that increase DDS may be effective in improving haemoglobin levels of WRA.

The results showed that DDS is a strong predictor of haemoglobin concentration of the WRA in this study. As the dietary diversity of the women increased, their mean haemoglobin concentration also improved. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to be conducted in the study area.

Credit is essential in the farm business because it facilitates the adoption of productive technologies such as irrigation. However, access to credit remains a significant hurdle for sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghanaian farmers. Therefore, the authors assessed credit utilization and the intensity of borrowing by irrigated rice farmers in the Upper East region. In addition, how extension moderates the amount borrowed was analysed.

The multistage sampling approach was used in the study. The Tono and Vea irrigation schemes were purposively selected. Proportionally, 318 rice farmers were sampled from the Tono irrigation scheme and 159 from the Vea irrigation scheme. Cragg's double hurdle and moderation analysis were used.

It was uncovered that gender, age, years of farming, total farm size, rice farm size, contract farming and off-farm employment explain farmers' decision to borrow. On the other hand, the intensity of borrowing was influenced by gender, age, years of farming, rice farm size, contract farming and the number of extension contact. The moderation analysis revealed that extension contact improves the amount borrowed by farmers.

While there are irrigated rice farmers in other regions of Ghana, this study was limited to rice farmers under the Tono and Vea Irrigation schemes in the Upper East region.

This study investigated the moderating role of extension contact on amount borrowed in Ghana. This makes a modest addition to the limited literature on the moderating role of extension and credit access.

Northern Ghana still has vast supplies of undeveloped land, with enormous potential for commercial agriculture, agro‐industries, housing estates, shopping centres and hotels. Yet its regional economy remains weak. Ignoring the historical and colonial origins of the marginalization of the North generally, examines the tenurial issues and land management practices of the region and their implications for investment mobilization. The evidence suggests that the chequered history of land tenure not only resulted in social unrest and the displacement of helpless villagers, but also induced the destruction of invaluable investments, particularly in agriculture. To promote investments in the landed property sector more certain land tenure systems, secure and speedier land title documentation processes and improved management practices are required. For sustainable investments, however, tenurial security must of necessity be combined with improvements in technical and social infrastructure, financial support, widened markets and guaranteed prices, appropriate technology and environmental security. Government commitment and investment incentive packages, along with international financial and technical support should also facilitate the development process.

This study examines the relationship between police culture and support for corruption among Ghanaian police officers.

The study draws on data from a survey of 616 police officers across three regions in Ghana. The research questions and hypotheses are addressed through a hierarchical regression analysis.

The results show that perception of corruption prevalence, lack of deterrence (i.e. perceived oversight measures) and the Upper East Region significantly predicted officers’ support for corruption. Particularly, lack of deterrence was a consistent predictor of support for corruption across different models compared to corruption prevalence. Contrary to previous studies, code of silence was found not to predict officers’ support for corruption.

This paper contributes to the police culture and corruption debate an African perspective, where little research has explored the relationship between police culture and corruption. The code of silence not predicting support for corruption contradicts previous studies and contributes to the debate, literature and theory development.

Against the background that Ghanaians seldom purchase insurance policies, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of life insurance uptake among male and female household heads in Ghana.

The study employs data on 775 male and 233 female household heads from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey. Adjusted Wald test statistics and logistic regressions are employed for the empirical estimations.

Results from the adjusted Wald test show that the sampled male household heads significantly differ from their female counterparts in terms of the selected socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Though ill health status, higher wealth, being self-employed or in wage or salaried employment and residing in either of the three northern regions (upper east, upper west and northern regions) in Ghana broadly affect the demand for life insurance among both male and female heads, other factors are peculiar to either parties. Particularly, whereas female heads who are married and those with more dependants have a higher propensity of purchasing life insurance policies, their male counterparts with higher education are more likely to buy life insurance policies.

The paper adds to the paucity of cross-sectional studies on life insurance demand in Africa.

Based on the explored determinants, insurers could better regulate the purchase of their products by taking into consideration the gender differences to maximize their sales and enhance economic growth and development.

This paper explores the gender dynamics in the determinants of life insurance demand in a developing country, Ghana. Besides, findings from related literature are reported to be mixed. Though the current paper is not wholly nationally representative, it utilizes data from across all the ten administrative regions of Ghana. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior study has been conducted in this manner.