With funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Tetra Tech (USA Based Consulting Firm) is working with Ecom Agro-industrial Corp. (ECOM), a global commodity trading company on a new Integrated land Resource Governance (ILRG II) program from 2023 to 2028. The focus of the program is to increase women’s empowerment, promote climate mitigation, and incentivize reforestation in Ghana. Tetra Tech is conducting a GESI analysis as part of a baseline study for the program and engaged Kanko (Development Consulting Firm) to support its primary qualitative data collection. The GESI analysis aimed to provide baseline information for a better understanding of the barriers and opportunities for gender equality, social inclusion, and women’s empowerment in the cocoa value chain and agroforestry activities in Ghana before the rollout of the ILRG phase two program.
The assessment team used focus group discussions and key interviews as well as observation to gather qualitative data. Data was collected in two of Ecom’s cocoa districts in Ghana, Mankranso (Ashanti Region) and Dunkwa Unicom (Central Region). Respect for privacy, confidentiality and rights to anonymity were observed throughout the assessment. The gender analysis was done in six domains: 1) laws, policies, regulations, and institutional practices; 2) cultural norms and beliefs; 3) gender roles, responsibilities, and time use; 4) access to and control over assets and resources; 5) patterns of power and decision-making and 6) personal safety and security among different identity groups. The findings of the GESI analysis were insightful.
In all selected cocoa communities, men are considered heads of households, so they exercise full control over women who accept their role as that of supporting the men. This attitude is exhibited in how both men and women approach cocoa farming in the communities. As a result, everything revolves around the men, including farmlands, inputs, and proceeds from cocoa farming. Married women farmers cannot take any major step on farms without their husbands’ approval.
Again, cocoa farming is highly engendered in the communities. Men are seen to have strong physique than women so, activities requiring physical strength and key decisions in the cocoa value chain are reserved for men. It was evidently clear that greater aspects of cocoa farming are considered as men’s role. Though some women demonstrated their ability to perform the male assigned role, many women who have no men in their lives (single women and widows) hire the services of man to perform the men’s roles for them. This assessment confirmed the disparity in labor fees for men and women in some communities. A woman and a man can do the same farm work but the man will end up with higher pay than the woman. This is due to the general perception that men deliver high-quality services.
The assessment found that both men and women acquire land through the same means in the various cocoa communities. There is no different process for the man or woman in terms of land acquisition. However, land acquisition is generally perceived as a man’s role. The common ways to acquire lands are through outright purchase, ‘abunu’ farming system, and hiring for short-term food crop farming, including intercropping of cocoa farms with food crops. Land and tenancy arrangements are typically between the landowner and the buyer/abunu farmer with written documentation as proof of land ownership in many instances. In most of the cocoa communities, land documentation is completed in the palace with the chief signing and/or in the district courts.
Regarding power dynamics, men are the ultimate decision-makers for both farming and non-farming issues. Men have the discretion to make decisions without consulting women, but the reverse is not true for women, who need to consult their husbands in most decisions. Men in focus group discussions agreed that women must consult them on all decisions, but men do not need to consult women. Although men are the decision-makers, it was argued that they respect women’s opinions when they support their husbands and bring additional income to the family.
Finally, it was clear that child marriage is frowned upon in the target communities. The respondents could not imagine a parent giving their child out for marriage as a result of economic hardship. The assessment however did reveal that teenage pregnancy could lead to parents forcing their daughters and the father of the baby to cohabit/marry. There are no major security concerns in their communities.
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