GROWING – Ghana
Generating Revenues for Improved Nutrition in Northern Ghana
Joy Addai /CARE
Project snapshot:
- GROWING (Generating Revenues for Improved Nutrition in Northern Ghana)
- Goal: To improve nutrition and financial security for women, youth, and young children
- Target group: Women of reproductive age (15-49 years) and their children, from 72 rural villages in the north of Ghana
- Where: 6 selected districts of Northern Ghana
1. Northern region: Saboba and Gushiegu districts
2. Savannah region: North Gonja and West Gonja districts
3. North eastern region: Chereponi and East Mamprusi districts - Duration: 2022-2026 (4.5 years)
The situation
Despite Ghana’s tremendous progress in reducing poverty over the past 20 years, clear inequities persist between regions, with the former Northern region (fNR) suffering from higher poverty rates, higher mortality rates for children under five, and higher Vitamin A deficiency among children under five years. Only 27.2% of women and girls 11 years and older are literate. The fNR has the lowest percentage among all regions of women who have completed secondary school or higher, and early marriage is common, with 28% married before reaching 18 years of age.
What we are doing
Funded by the Government of Canada and led by our partner The International Potato Center (CIP), the GROWING project will use an approach that integrates agriculture, nutrition, and marketing for maximum impact.
CARE will support the creation of a more gender equitable environment, and will work with women in the target areas to build their confidence and skills to claim their rights, in particular in relation to their nutritional and financial security.
This will be achieved by:
- Organizing rural women and men into clubs that will provide training on growing and consuming more nutritious crops in a more environmentally sustainable way
- Providing interventions to reduce gender inequality around growing, consuming, and marketing nutritious food
- Engaging women in Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) so they can improve their financial security and generate income
- Organizing/facilitating community dialogue to challenge negative gender norms that create barriers to women’s financial and nutrition security
Learn more
Project targets
- Engage at least of 7,560 rural households in the 6 targeted districts to become members of Healthy Living Clubs (HLC)
- Engage the women and men in one of the clubs aimed at income-generation (Farming as a Business Club (FBC), or Agro-processing Club (APC), or Small Livestock Rearing Club (SLRC)
- Engage at least one member of each HLC participant household in the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA)
- Engage 2,052 additional women from marginalized groups in the VSLAs, such as widows, divorced women with older children, women who have limited access to media information, and girls who have married early but do not yet have children.
Fundraising goals
CARE Canada needs to raise $150,000 from the public for GROWING.
Partners
