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Gender Assessment USAID/Ghana Gender Assessment USAID/Ghana December 2, 2011 This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by Cultural Practice, LLC for USAID/Ghana under Purchase Order # 641-O-00-11-00023-00 and modifications. DISCLAIMER: The authors‘ views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. i Women at microcredit meeting in Ghana Photo credit: D.Rubin ii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................................... v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................... vi Acronyms ........................................................................................................................................... xiv I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 1 A. Gender and Growth in Ghana .......................................................................................................... 1 Economic Growth ................................................................................................................................. 2 Health .................................................................................................................................................... 3 Democracy and Governance ................................................................................................................. 6 Education .............................................................................................................................................. 9 B. Public Policy Framework for Gender in Ghana ............................................................................. 11 Economic Growth ............................................................................................................................... 11 Health .................................................................................................................................................. 14 Democracy and Governance ............................................................................................................... 16 Education ............................................................................................................................................ 17 II. DISCUSSION OF USAID MISSION STRATEGIC PRIORITIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................................ 19 Economic Growth ............................................................................................................................... 19 Health .................................................................................................................................................. 33 Democracy and Governance ............................................................................................................... 42 Education ............................................................................................................................................ 53 III. POSTSCRIPT ON RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................ 60 IV. ILLUSTRATIVE GENDER RESULTS FRAMEWORK ............................................................. 61 V. GENDER ACTION PLAN ............................................................................................................ 63 VI. ANNEXES Annex 1: Bibliography Annex 2: Basic Concepts Annex 3: Scope of Work Annex 4: Gender Assessment Methodology iii iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The assessment team would like to thank Cheryl Anderson, USAID/Ghana Mission Director, and the staff of USAID/Ghana for their tremendous support during the assessment process. Particular thanks go to Belien Tadesse, Project Development Officer; and Abdulai Mahama, Program Budget and Reporting Specialist, for their coordination of this complex process. We are also indebted to the USAID technical teams who generously shared their time, reflections, and recommendations with us despite multiple competing priorities and assessment processes. Our thanks also go to the USAID implementing partners with whom we met and who were so accommodating of our schedule. Their dedication to their work is inspiring. Our deep gratitude goes to Mark Fenn, Chief of Party of Hen Mpoano/Our Coast, and Peter Fricker, Chief of Party of Local Governance and Decentralization Program, for making it possible for us to see these projects and meet with project staff and beneficiaries. We would also like to acknowledge the generosity of the numerous development partners, academic experts, and the Ghanaian government ministry officials with whom we were able to meet. We very much appreciated being welcomed by Graham Gass of Department for International Development (UK) and the other members of the Gender Equity Stakeholder Team to participate in their monthly meeting. Finally, our thanks and appreciation to the Ghanaian NGOs who participated in the roundtables and made time in their hectic schedules to travel to the USAID office to share their visions and lessons learned with us. Your work is the heart of the matter. This version of the report has been significantly changed in response to reviewers of the first draft from USAID/Washington, including Caren Grown, Senior Gender Advisor (PPL/P) and Chloe Schwenke, Senior Advisor, Democracy and Governance (AFR/AA). With these revisions, we trust that it is a more strategically oriented document that will meet the Mission‘s need to develop a Country Development Cooperation Strategy to guide future USAID investments to reduce gender inequalities in Ghana. The Gender Assessment Team Deborah Caro, Cristina Manfre, and Deborah Rubin (Cultural Practice, LLC) Deborah Gordis, and Rudith King (Independent Consultants) v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The last two decades in Ghana have witnessed a real decline in poverty, even as its population increased. The number of poor people declined by 1.6 million between 1992 and 2006, with the percentage of poor in the population decreasing from over half (51.7%) in 1992 to 28.5% in 2006. This decline was also evident in the number of people living in households headed by women, which can be among the poorest households. The population in these households decreased from 22% in 1992 to 15% in 2006, even though the proportion of households headed by women remained around 25% over the same period (World Bank 2011a). National GDP per capita is also increasing, with new data and calculation methods boosting Ghana‘s GDP per capita to US $1,100 in 2009 and $1,347 in 2010, placing it within the lower middle-income country category (World Bank 2011b; Ghana Statistical Service 2011).The country is also on track to achieve some of its key targets under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite this important progress, two relative areas of disparity persist and require targeted attention: regional and gender inequalities. First there is long-standing and well-documented regional disparity between the north and the south. Between 1992 and 2006, the northern regions have not seen the same reduction in poverty as the south, with the number of the poor in the rural north growing. The poverty gap is also greater in the north. Further, the emerging growth of the oil and gas industry in the south and the drain of north-to-south migration threaten to widen these gaps between the regions (World Bank 2011a). Gender inequalities remain significant across sectors. The Human Development Index rank of 130 for Ghana (out of 168 countries) puts it in the high end of the ―low human development‖ ranking, between Kenya (128) and Bangladesh (129) and ahead of Cameroon (131) and Myanmar (132). As calculated in the Global Gender Gap (Hausmann et al. 2010) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII) (UNDP 2010), women remain disadvantaged relative to men across a range of measures related to employment, health, education, and political participation. The Global Gender Gap index ranks Ghana 15 out of 134 countries in economic opportunity for women, but considerably lower in other sectors (103). Ghana ranks 114 out of 168 on the GII which uses a different set of indicators to reflect inequality in achievements between women and men in reproductive health, empowerment, and the labor market. Both indices reflect in different ways that although women are economically active and contribute significantly to the economy, they also experience serious shortcomings in education, health, and political voice. Government of Ghana (GOG) public policies address gender inequalities and meeting the needs of women, but implementation remains a challenge. USAID can support the GOG through interventions in each sector can benefit from policy reforms to address specific areas of gender disparities which are briefly summarized below and elaborated on in the report. USAID/Ghana is in the process of developing a new Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) that will cover fiscal years 2011-2015. The new strategy will focus on the same four development objectives (DO) as the current strategy: Economic Growth, Education, Democracy and Governance, and Health. The USAID/Ghana Mission anticipates substantially realigning program
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