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In spite of its role in the development of nations, transport has also been identified as a means of spreading some communicable diseases. However, few studies have been conducted to assess the spread of diseases on road transport. This study sought to explore the views of operators and passengers about the spread of communicable diseases on the public road transport system in Accra, Ghana. Adapting the Disease Transmission Cycle as the conceptual framework, and following a qualitative research method, data for the study were collected through in-depth interviews and observations and were analysed manually based on the emerging themes. Though various diseases were identified to spread on the public road transport system, there were divergent views on the risk of being infected. Meanwhile, respondents indicated they would feel uncomfortable putting up with people suspected to be infected with communicable diseases. The study emphasises strict adherence to internationally acceptable standards on road transport in order to minimize the spread of communicable diseases on public transport in Ghana.

Many smallholder farmers in Jaman North District, Brong‐Ahafo Region, Ghana are shifting from food crop production to increased cultivation of cashew, an export cash crop. This paper examines gendered and generational tensions in increased commercialisation of land, livelihood diversification, and household food security in the context of globalisation and environmental change. Using qualitative, participatory research with 60 middle‐generation men and women, young people and key stakeholders, the research found that community members valued the additional income stream. Young people and women, however, were apprehensive about the long‐term consequences for food security of allocating so much land to cashew plantations. Young, middle, and older generations were concerned about their weak bargaining position in negotiating fair prices with export companies and intermediaries. Greater integration into the global economy exposed rural actors to multiple risks and inequalities, such as the uneven effects of economic globalisation, rises in food prices, hunger and food insecurity, growing competition for land, youth outmigration and climate change. The shift towards cashew cultivation appears to be exacerbating gender and generational inequalities in access to land and food insecurity and leading to exploitation within the global agri‐food supply chain among already vulnerable rural communities in the global South. With stronger farmer associations and cooperatives, however, cashew farmers stand the chance of benefitting from greater integration into the global economy, through strengthened bargaining positions. Greater understanding is needed about the complex interactions between sustainable food systems, changing land use and gender and generational inequalities in rural spaces.

Since the late 1990s, the arguably most problematic regions in Ghana—the three northern regions, accounting for half of the country’s landscape yet the least developed—have come under increased academic scrutiny. This article seeks to interrogate some conventional arguments which attempt to attribute the region’s underdevelopment to its physical and climatic challenges, which are no more serious than other West Africa Sahelian countries where greater economic development is visible. Tracing the region’s past policy trajectories, we argue that adopting a rather ubiquitous deterministic lens oversimplifies or overlooks not only the flawed vestiges of colonial and post-colonial administrations but also the policy inconsistencies pursued and still pursued in the Fourth Republic. We conclude that the colonial policy biases, coupled with successive rounds of post-independence policy (dis)continuities, tend to gloss over fundamental problems underpinning the region’s low productivity and underdevelopment. These tendencies conceptually legitimize and constitute a key strategy in explaining the region’s developmental problems. Within such a configuration, a successive blend of failures and limitations in development policy has tended to be (re)inscribed in the region’s governance, ignoring long-established local values and preferences and thereby perpetuating underdevelopment in the region.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is one of the interventions meant to prolong the progression from HIV to AIDS for People Living with HIV (PLHIVs). Although ART was introduced in Ghana in 2003, there is little or no information about the preferences of those on ART services. The main objective of the study therefore was to examine the preferences of PLHIVs concerning ART services. The data were extracted from a nationwide qualitative study conducted by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) which covered 12 cities/towns sampled from the three ecological zones of Ghana. Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and In-Depth Interviews (IDI) were the methods used in the data collection. A total of 145 FGDs and 171 IDIs were conducted in all the study sites among a wide range of target groups. The data were transcribed and analysed using NUD*IST (Non-numerical Data* Indexing Searching and Theorizing) version 6. The results showed that the hospital was the most preferred place for ART medications and most PLHIVs preferred to receive ART drugs from health personnel, trained PLHIVs or ‘foreigners’. PLHIVs preferred to access ART services free of charge and abhorred delays at ART centres. The preferences of PLHIVs regarding ART services must be considered in policies and programmes aimed at increasing enrolment, retention and coverage of ART in the country.

This research aimed to investigate the implications of changing agricultural land use from food production towards increased cashew cultivation for food security and poverty alleviation in Jaman North District, Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana. Based on qualitative, participatory research with a total of 60 participants, the research found that increased cashew production had led to improvements in living standards for many farmers and their children over recent years. Global demand for cashew is projected to continue to grow rapidly in the immediate future and cashew-growing areas of Ghana are well placed to respond to this demand. Cashew farmers however were subject to price fluctuations in the value of Raw Cashew Nuts (RCN) due to unequal power relations with intermediaries and export buyer companies and global markets, in addition to other vulnerabilities that constrained the quality and quantity of cashew and food crops they could produce. The expansion of cashew plantations was leading to pressure on the remaining family lands available for food crop production, which community members feared could potentially compromise the food security of rural communities and the land inheritance of future generations.