Research

While maternal mortality has declined in past decades (from 760 per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 319 per 100,000 in 2015), the pace of progress has been slow and a significant effort is still required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal Target of 70 per 100,000 births in 2030. Some of the key factors […]

The three northern regions in Ghana, covering about 17 percent of the national population, contribute to approximately forty percent of the poor in Ghana (Molini and Pierella, 2015). This is primarily due to erratic rainfall, low soil fertility, limited work outside agriculture, and limited farming activities in the dry season. To address this, Ghana’s Ministry […]

One critical determinant of education quality is the way in which education systems are managed. Bottom-up approaches that involve local parents and communities in monitoring school management, curricula, teacher behavior, and instruction practices are commonly advocated policies to improve education quality. In this project, the research team is collaborating with Ghana’s Ministry of Education (MoE) […]

National cohesion and labor productivity are two central issues in sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana’s National Service Scheme (NSS) is an ambitious government program intended to address both. Each year, more than 70,000 tertiary graduates are assigned by the NSS to 12-month employment postings throughout the country.  Given this large-scale labor mobilization, what assignment mechanism(s) are optimal […]

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals call for “free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes”– following the roll-out of free primary education programs, many African governments are now focusing on secondary education.  Several government policies have been implemented in pursuit of improving access to quality education in Ghana, […]

Increasing access to affordable, clean energy is the basis of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number seven, and central to achieving many of the SDGs– in Ghana, it is estimated that only 82.5 percent of households in 2016 have access to electricity. Attaining full electricity access requires increasing the production capacity through increased investment in the […]

Globally, maternal mortality is the major cause of death among women of a reproductive age group. In Ghana, the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health survey shows that one out of every seven women aged 12-49 die due to preventable maternal causes, and one out of 27 children die before reaching age one.  While there are multiple […]

There is a long-standing debate in global development literature on the reliability and sustainability of microfinance to alleviate poverty. In 2006, the Government of Ghana established the Microfinance and Small Loans Center (MASLOC) to “provide, manage and regulate…funds for microfinance and small scale credit schemes…” MASLOC is critical to the Government’s poverty reduction strategy, but […]

For many densely populated settlements, availability of clean and hygienic sanitation as well as management of solid and liquid waste poses a huge problem–often it strains the environment and agriculture deteriorate from famished soil.  Energy recovery from waste can solve two problems at once:  treating non-recyclable and non-reusable amounts of waste and  generating a significant […]