SAGA Progress Report
October, 2003

• Commissioning a broad set of papers on Understanding Poverty in Ghana, written primarily by Ghanaian scholars based in Ghana.
  
  This is a foundational exercise for the SAGA project, both in terms of providing a broad overview of the topic for Ghana, but also in terms of engaging with Ghanaian scholars and forming teams of ISSER and non-ISSER analysts. A preliminary list of papers is as follows:
  

1. Land and Rural Institutions Transformation
   Ernest Aryeetey and Dzodzi Tsikata
2. Decentralization
   Felix Asante and Joseph Ayee
3. Qual-Quant
   Ellen Bortei-Doku Aryeetey and Ravi Kanbur
4. Public Expenditure Monitoring
   Charles Jebuni and Anthony Tsekpo
5. Health Insurance
   Kwadwo Asenso Okyere and K. Osei-Akoto
6. Education for HIV/AIDS
   John Anarfi and Ernest Appiah
7. Household Asset Choice
   Ernest Aryeetey
8. Skills Acquisition by the Poor
   William Ahadzie and George Botchie
9. Inflation and the Poor
   Nii Kwaku Sowa
10. Poverty Dynamics- Risk and Vulnerabilty
    Abena Oduro and Kojo Appiah-Kubi
11. Non-traditional Exports and Poverty Reduction
    Victor Nyanteng and Wayo Seini
12. Trade and Poverty
    Charles Jebuni

The first drafts of papers will be presented at a workshop in Accra in January, 2004, and final drafts presented at the major conference on the Economy of Ghana in July 2004 (see below).

• Support for the new Network on the Economy of Ghana (NEG).
  
  The dissemination of the papers discussed above is developing into a major new process that is very exciting. We had originally thought of having a final conference on the Understanding Poverty volume in July, 2004. However, Ernest Aryeetey, the Director of ISSER, has now devised a major new plan to make this July 2004 meeting the first conference of a new "Network on the Economy of Ghana." Within Ghana, this would fulfill the need previously met by the now moribund Economic Society of Ghana and, equally important, would serve as a network for the diaspora of Ghanaian economists, and indeed for all economists working on Ghana. The idea of the Network has received strong support from within Ghana. It will be based at ISSER and will use new technology and web-based links to the fullest. It will produce a journal, published and managed electronically. ISSER has successfully applied to the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) for institutional support for the Network. The July 2004 conference is now targeted as the launch conference for the Network, and planning of its structure, invitees, etc., is already under way. Thus, the ISSER-Cornell and SAGA-Ghana processes have now led to a Ghana-wide process, based at ISSER, which has the possibility of transforming economic analysis networks on Ghana.
  
  
• Panel data sets for Ghana.
  
  There is a glaring gap in data on poverty in Ghana—the lack of panel data sets that allow us to do serious analysis of poverty dynamics. Ghana simply does not have the household panel data sets that are essential before a whole host of dynamic questions — on risk, on poverty, on health and nutrition, on informal insurance, etc., can be answered. We therefore set for ourselves the task of developing a comprehensive research proposal that will develop, for the first time, such a data set and such analyses, for Ghana. In Ghana, the work will be led by Abena Oduro of the Center for Policy Analysis (CEPA) and Kojo Appia-Kubi of ISSER (who will be doing a joint paper on this topic for the volume discussed above). SAGA initiated a meeting at Yale, which included ISSER and several global leaders in the area of poverty dynamics — Chris Udry, of Yale, Stefan Dercon of Oxford and John Hoddinott of IFPRI. With their help, IFPRI fashioned and submitted a proposal to SISERA for funding. This proposal is out for review, and we are waiting to hear the outcome.
  
  
• Qual-Quant for Ghana.
  
  The disconnect between qualitative and quantitative approaches to poverty analysis in Ghana is quite marked. We began to address this problem, in May, 2003, with ISSER who hosted a workshop in Accra designed to advance collaboration between the two types of analysts. The workshop was attended by approximately 30 participants, including economists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, and statisticians. Participants came from academia, think tanks, government, NGO’s, and donor groups. The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) took a particular interest in the proceedings. The core presentations were by Ellen Bortei-Doku, reporting on her work on participatory poverty analysis in Ghana; by Andy McKay, reporting on his work based on the Ghana Living Standards Surveys (GLSS); and by Paul Shaffer on his global experiences with mixed methods. These presentations set the stage for an exploration of the issues, tensions and complementarities, and how we might move forward. The basic modality of moving forward agreed upon by the participants was to form interdisciplinary teams to tackle specific issues. A wide range of possible topics were suggested and discussed, bearing in mind the specifics of the policy process in Ghana and the timetable on which specific inputs would be most useful to policy-makers, especially in the context of monitoring and evaluation of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). Over the longer term, ISSER will take the lead in forming interdisciplinary teams to address many issues that were highlighted as being best addressed by qual-quant analysis—and in seeking funding for these studies in the qual-quant tradition.
  
  
• Land issues.
  
  With regard to land issues, which were identified as a key component in the USAID-Ghana strategy, ISSER has drafted a research proposal based on discussions with the missions and with Sigma 1. This proposal is now being discussed with USAID-Ghana.

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