Abstract
The poverty situation in Northern Ghana is a major challenge to sustainable development. As a result of socio-cultural factors, women are vulnerable and their poverty situation is even more overwhelming. Development agencies, Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations have adopted and implemented different strategies aimed at reducing poverty in these areas. Micro-credit delivery to the poor especially women is one of these strategies that seems to be making impact towards improving the livelihoods of the rural poor women. The Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP), a Non-Governmental Organization has instituted a micro-credit scheme to help the poor rural women in Karaga district of Northern region to expand their sheabutter processing micro-business. The objective of the study was to assess the impact of the CLIP Project on the livelihood assets of sheabutter processing women in Karaga district of Northern region. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select 110 respondents (80 beneficiary and 30 non-beneficiary women) who were interviewed for the study. Interview guide and focus group discussions were tools used to obtain information from the sheabutter processing women. The results of the study revealed that the livelihood assets of the beneficiary women have been improved. The study further revealed that the livelihood assets of the beneficiary women were far better off as compared to that of the non-beneficiary women of the CLIP Project. The study recommended that, the CLIP Project should extend its financial services to many more non-beneficiary sheabutter processing women in the target communities.
Highlights
In Ghana, women play a major role in household sustenance and contribute immensely to community development
It is against this background that the Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP) is embarking on micro-credit scheme in the Karaga, Gushegu and Yendi districts of the Northern region of Ghana to provide financial and social intermediation services to women to enable them improve upon their micro-businesses for improved livelihoods
For the beneficiaries of the CLIP Project, 56.3% of them were between the ages of 40 to 60 years whilst 10% of them were above 60 years of age
Summary
In Ghana, women play a major role in household sustenance and contribute immensely to community development. Eighty (80) percent of female labour force is in small-scale industries in Ghana (NCWD, 1997) Majority of these women do not have adequate access to capital and training. Sheabutter processing, groundnut oil processing, local soap production and petty trading are some of the major activities that these women are engaged in and which can improve the livelihoods of rural women (Caldas et al, 2007) It is against this background that the Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP) is embarking on micro-credit scheme in the Karaga, Gushegu and Yendi districts of the Northern region of Ghana to provide financial and social intermediation services to women to enable them improve upon their micro-businesses for improved livelihoods
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