Capacity Strengthening Activities in Ghana in 2018

Several capacity strengthening activities were conducted in Ghana in 2018. Below is a brief summary of these activities:

• Elena Martinez and Jessica Heckert conducted a Learning lab on integrating gender into agriculture, nutrition, and health research at the ANH Academy Week 2018 conference in Accra, Ghana in June 2018. Learning objectives included identifying the gender dimensions of a research question; understanding the agriculture-nutrition pathways and how to apply them to gender research questions; and identifying methods and tools that can be used to answer gender research questions. The training had 9 male and 18 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Elena Martinez and Jessica Heckert conducted Learning lab on using the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) for nutrition-sensitive programming at the ANH Academy Week 2018 conference in Accra, Ghana in Jun 2018. This course provided an introduction to the WEAI, the first comprehensive and standardized measure to directly measure women's empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector. It covered the conceptual underpinnings of the WEAI, its domains and component indicators, and the ongoing development of a nutrition-sensitive project-level WEAI for use in agricultural development projects under Phase 2 of the Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project (GAAP2). Learning objectives/outcomes of the event were: 1)Understand how and why gender and women's empowerment matter for nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs; 2)Understand how the pro-WEAI can be used to measure women's empowerment in nutrition and health; 3)Understand how the pro-WEAI can be used to diagnose areas of disempowerment and monitor intended and unintended impacts of agricultural development programs on women's empowerment. The training had 20 males and 27 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Danielle Resnick conducted a training of enumerators recruited by CDD-Ghana for a survey with informal food traders in Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale between May-June 2018. As with the Nigeria training noted above, this training consisted of the following activities: a general explanation of the background and objectives of the survey, assignment of responsibilities for markets/trading areas in the survey sample, discussion of procedures for implementing sampling procedure in the markets/trading areas, detailed explanations of each survey module including the rationale, how to record answers for each question and survey logic, and opportunities for enumerators to practice interviews with fellow participants, including in local languages. The fourth day of training consisted of pilot interviews in a market in Accra followed by a debriefing session to update the survey instrument according to the feedback received. The training had 10 males and 12 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Beliyou Haile conducted a training on Africa RISING (AR) Data Requirements, Collection, and Management in October 2018. The training had 20 males and 4 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Jowel Choufani and Dawit Mekonnen conducted an Enumerator training in Northern Ghana for ILSSI end line data collection between April and September 2018. Training was on using tablets for data collection, household agriculture and nutrition modules. The training had 30 males and 12 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Nicholas Minot conducted a training ‘Methods for research on agricultural markets’. This was a three-day training course provided to students and faculty of the University of Ghana at Legon, as well as a few outsiders in January 2018. The course was taught by Jakko Niemi (LUKE, Finland) and Nicholas Minot as part of the Finnish-funded FoodAfrica program. The training had 3 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Luciana Delgado conducted a training on ‘Measure of losses across value chain’ in December 2018. The training had 5 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Mike Murphy conducted a Conservation Agriculture Evaluation (CAgE) Lab-in-the-field Pilot Training in December 2018. The training had 2 male and 5 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Elena Martinez and Jessica Heckert Learning lab on integrating gender into agriculture, nutrition, and health research at the ANH Academy Week 2018 conference in Accra, Ghana. Learning objectives included identifying the gender dimensions of a research question; understanding the agriculture-nutrition pathways and how to apply them to gender research questions; and identifying methods and tools that can be used to answer gender research questions. For more information, click here.
• Melissa Hidrobo, Lucy Billings, and Heleene Tambet conducted mNutrition endline enumerator training in October 2018. The training had 28 female and 13 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Jef Leroy organized a learning lab to provide an understanding of how linear growth can and should be used as a measure in development that is grounded in evidence on the processes, determinants, and outcomes of linear growth in June 2018. The lab presented the history of using growth as a measure of healthy development of infants and young children, discussed measures and indicators, applied the concepts to understand the meaning of child linear growth retardation and differentiating between outcomes to which poor linear growth is causally linked and outcomes for which growth is instead a marker. Additionally, the lab built on this evidence, to present an appropriate use of linear growth as a measure in development. The training had 17 male and 30 female participants. For more information, click here.
• Namukolo Covic and Roos Verstraeten conducted a training on Leading change in nutrition in November 2018. This training was part of the Transform Nutrition West Africa Project (TNWA). The training addressed leadership capacity to lead nutrition change within a multisectoral context. It was based on needs identified in the inception phase of the project and additional diagnostic processes done by Supporting Policies, Programs and Enabling Action through Research (SPEAR) that are relevant to the African context. The training had 11 female and 20 female participants. For more information, click here. For more information, click here.
• Catherine Ragasa, Kwaw Andam, Seth Asante, and Sena Amewu conducted an Enumerator training and Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) pre-test for consumer preference survey and experimental auction for rice, chicken and tilapia in May 2018. The training had 12 male and 9 female participants. For more information, click here.