Table 5.17 Attendance at Meetings on Agricultural or Livestock in Ghana, by Zone and Type of Respondent (percentage of members of each group) Attended community meeting about agricultural issues
Zone Forest Transition Savannah
Attended group meeting with extension agent or livestock officer
Male Female Male Female household household Female household household Female heads heads spouses heads heads spouses (n = 767) (n = 125) (n = 607) (n = 677) (n = 108) (n = 92) 17.5 17.1 23.6
1.9 6.3 0
5.4 7.7 8.7
10.8 15.2 13.2
1.9 4.2 0
5.3 6.4 6.5
Source: ISSER-IFPRI Survey 2008.
male and female household heads was statistically significant. The vast majority of both men and women who did not attend meetings failed to do so because such meetings were not held in their villages (see annex table 5.A.13). Only one respondent who received an extension visit at home indicated that the visit was from an NGO agricultural extension provider. This suggests that the public sector (the Ministry of Food and Agriculture [MoFA]) is almost the sole provider of home visits. Although the share of households that received home visits was low, those who received extension seemed to be satisfied with the quality of the service: 85 of 96 respondents (89 percent) who received a visit of an extension agent at their home were “highly satisfied” with the quality of information provided, and the remaining 11 were “somewhat satisfied.” The percentages for spouses were similar. MoFA organized two-thirds of the community meetings that dealt with agricultural or livestock issues; 14 percent were organized by NGOs and 30 percent by others (unit committees were mentioned most frequently among the others) (table 5.18). Chiefs and cooperatives also organized meetings. Private sector entities were not mentioned among the organizers of such meetings. In general, satisfaction rates with meetings were very high: 90 percent of respondents were very satisfied with the information provided at the MoFA meetings. For NGO meetings, the percentage was 72 percent. The NGO meetings tended to be slightly more demand driven: 28 percent of respondents said the NGO meeting was held on request; the figure for MoFA meetings was 19 percent. NGOs and other organizations organized more than one-third of the community meetings that dealt with agriculture or livestock issues. In contrast, 90 percent of the meetings with farmers’ groups were held by MoFA extension agents. Only 4 percent of such group meetings were held by NGOs. Satisfaction rates for the group meetings were similar to those for communitybased meetings.
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GENDER AND GOVERNANCE IN RURAL SERVICES