Policy Baseline Survey ELLEMBELLE Report August 2012 Page 2 Introduction and Purpose The Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED) undertook a baseline survey in the district of Ellembele primarily to promote and enhance the understanding of women and first-time voters on policy issues. The survey is part of a broader project goal to empower citizens to be politically active and also to influence local decision making. The survey data has been analysed based on a number of thematic areas, namely; electoral participation and civic responsibility, party affiliation and political activity, transparency and inclusivity in local governance, women in local governance, and policy literacy. The survey data was collected in 5 days and was based on a randomly selected district sample of 200 respondents representing a cross-section of the district population aged 18 years and above. All interviews were conducted one-on-one/face-to-face by trained field officers in the language of the respondent’s choice. The survey respondents were randomly selected to reflect the different constituents of people living in the rural (34.9 percent), semi- urban (32.5 percent) and urban areas (32.5 percent). Brief Background The Ellembele district which is one of the Seventeen (17) districts in the Western Region of Ghana is located on the southern end of the region between longitudes 2º05’ and 2º35’ West and latitude 4º40 and 5º20 North. The Ellembele district is one of the newly created districts in the Western Region of Ghana. It was carved out of the Nzema East district in 2008 under Legislative Instrument (LI 1918). Its district capital is Nkroful, the original birth place of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of the Republic of Ghana. The district capital is situated about 4 kilometers off the main trans-West Africa trunk road to Cote d’ Ivoire. It is about 80 kilometers from Takoradi, the regional capital and 305 kilometers to Accra the national capital. It is made up of 115 settlements with the major ones in the south. The district lies within the wet semi-equatorial climate zone of the West African Sub- region. Rainfall is throughout the year with the highest monthly mean occurring around May and June. The average temperature in the district is about 29.4 degrees Celsius with variation in mean monthly temperatures ranging between 4 – 5 degrees Celsius throughout a year. The vegetation of the district is made up of moist semi-deciduous rain forest in the northern part, but turns into secondary forest as one move southwards mainly due to human activities like tree felling and farming. There is about 70km coastline which is mainly of savanna vegetation. The district has several timber species and other non- timber forest products like rattan, bamboo. It also abounds in game and wildlife of all kinds which offer opportunities to generate resources for development. Page 3 The district is bounded in the south by the Gulf of Guinea, north by part of the north eastern part of the Axim municipality and the Wassa Amefi West district, west by the Jomorro district and the east by the River Ankobra (a major river in western region which separates the Ellembelle district from its mother district, now called Axim Municipality). It covers a total area of about 1,468 (square kilometers) which constitute about 6.8 percent of the total land mass of the region. The current population of the district based on the 2010 Ghana Population and Housing Census is 87,501 – just about 2.6 percent of the total population in the region (about 2.3 million). Women make up 51.6 percent of the district population with the men constituting 48.4 percent. Cocoa is now the predominant tree crop grown in the district. It used to be the coconut tree crop until the devastation of the crop by the deadly yellowing disease (Cape Saint Paul’s wilt disease). Other tree crops of economic importance include oil palm, rubber, and citrus. Major food crops are cassava, plantain, rice, vegetables such as garden eggs, pepper, and tomato. Livestock kept include cattle, sheep and goat, pigs, local poultry and ducks. Marine fishing is the major activity along the coastal belt of the district. Sample population More than half of the interviewees (52.3 percent) were women with 47.7 per cent being men. Nearly 88.1 percent of the population had some form of education. Table 1 presents the different levels of education. Only 3.1 percent of respondents had reached the university level, whereas 11.9 percent had no formal education. Table 1: Educational level of sample population Educational Level Percentage of sample population covered Primary 9.3 JHS/MSL 42.5 SHS 27.5 Technical/Vocational 4.7 Teacher training/nursing 1.0 University 3.1 None 11.9 total 100 Data source: GenCED field data, July 2012 As many as 69.0 percent of respondents had some form of employment. Most were engaged in small income generating self-employment - trading (17.5 percent), commercial driving (11.4 percent) and the rest were engaged in other non-agriculture activities. Only 5.4 percent were farmers whereas 4.2 are involved in illegal mining Page 4 popularly referred to as “galamsey.” More than half of the sample population (56.6 percent) have resided in the district for more than 10 years; others had lived in Ellembele between 5-10 years (20.4 percent) while the remaining 23.0 percent have resided in the district for less than 5 years. Electoral Participation & Civic Responsibility Ghana’s 1992 Constitution and the laws of the country generally provide a fair and non-discriminatory way of establishing citizenship rights. Voting is one of the fundamental civic rights of people enshrined in the 1992 constitution of Ghana. Specifically, Article 42 state’s “Every citizen of Ghana of eighteen years of age or above and of sound mind has the right to vote and is entitled to be registered as a voter for the purposes of public election and referenda.” Recently, Ghana’s Independent Electoral Commission (EC) completed its Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) exercise with an estimated 14 million persons registered to vote in the December 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary elections. This is the first time Ghana will be voting using the BVR. It cost the state an estimated USD45 million to complete the exercise. Participation in the BVR was very encouraging with 95 percent of respondents duly registered. Most of them may have registered with the intention to vote in the 2012 elections. Roughly 85 percent of respondents say they will vote in the December elections. Chart 1 shows the breakdown in terms of the percentages of women and men willing to vote in 2012. Chart 1: % of male/female intending to vote Series1, in 2012 election Male, 0.885 Series1, Female, 0.818 Data Source: GenCED field data, July 2012 An assessment of those who voted in the immediate past election 2008 (see Chart 2) and those who intend to vote in 2012 also provides some hope. If achieved, the number of both sexes who intend to vote in 2012 will exceed those who voted in the 2008 election. Quite an insignificant few – 11.5 percent men and 17.2 percent women may have registered under the BVR for ulterior motives other than to vote for instance some claim they just need an identification card etc.. Page 5 Again we need to tread cautiously in order not to make any generalisations about the district’s population as the low number of voters in 2008 can be partly explained by people’s absence from the constituency during the election – 31.3 percent of all respondents said they travelled outside the constituency at the time of the 2008 election. A sizeable number, 37.5 percent were also underage and therefore ineligible to vote. Chart 2: % of male/female that voted in the 2008 election Series1, Male, 0.705 Series1, Female, 0.614 Data source: GenCED field data, July 2012 Chart 3 also provides an overview of people’s participation in the last District Assembly (DA) election. It is interesting to note that a significant proportion of both sexes exercised their franchise in the last local assembly election. Traditionally, DA elections have been poorly patronised due to its non-partisan nature. It becomes necessary to monitor the next elections to see if the status quo is maintained. Chart 3: % of male/female who voted in 2010 DA election Female, Male, Didn’t Didn’t Vote, Vote, 31.2 36.8 Male Female Male, Female, Voted, 68.8 Voted, 63.2 Data source:GenCED field data, July 2012 The survey sampled views of respondents regarding voting for a woman parliamentary candidate. The majority were in favour of voting for a woman parliamentarian (see chart 4) in the upcoming elections. Despite this, no woman has presented herself as a parliamentary candidate to be voted for in the past two Page 6 elections. An assessment of representation in the last two parliamentary elections is presented in tables 2 and 3 below. The men have dominated the scene in the past as shown by the past two elections. It will be interesting to see if this scenario changes in the future. Chart 4: Voting for woman parliamentary candidate Series1, Uncertain, Series1, No, 0.5, 1% 21, 21% Series1, Yes, 78.5, 78% Data source: GenCED field data, July 2012 Table 2: Ellembelle - 7 December Parliamentary Election Results 2008 Rank Candidate Name Party Votes % 1 EMMANUEL ARMAH- NDC 14,077 47.4% KOFI BUAH 2 FREDDIE BLAY CPP 12,428 41.8% 3 MAXWELL AMUAH IND 2,918 9.8 ESSIEN 4 MATHIAS BOATENG IND 168 0.6 5 KODWOE YANKSON IND 121 0.4 Data source: www.ec.gov.gh Table 3: Ellembelle - 7 December Parliamentay Election Results 2004 Rank Candidate Name Party Votes % 1 FREDDIE BLAY CPP 18,428 52.7% 2 KAKU KORSAH NDC 11,322 32.4% 3 KYIAMAH KAKU IND 902 2.6 4 SHAIBU CHIE ISSAKA PNC 388 1.1 Data source: www.ec.gov.gh Party affiliation and political activity The two dominant political traditions i.e.