Asset Based Integrated Community Development in Northern Region of Ghana

Iowa State University, 2018

Master of Design in Sustainable Environment Final Thesis

Gender roles are the activities, responsibilities, and rights that a society considers normal and appropriate for men and women. There is no singular model for gender roles in Africa. The continent’s diverse cultures have many different ideas about male and female roles, although in general women have been subordinate to men in both public and family lives. Like gender roles, notions about sex and standards of sexual behavior differ widely across Africa (“Gender Roles and Sexuality”). This research is focusing on gender boundaries within society roles of the Northern region, Ghana in Africa and how the phenomena of “think leader/think man” is grounded in this country as a result of different religious impacts on indigenous culture. The study is proposing how empowering women will provide the society with better investment in education and health of children while male participation should be considered in every development plan to be able to make a real change. The Asset Based Integrated Rural Development plan with a clear understanding of existing capital and assets in rural communities in Northern Region of Ghana is trying to involve all members of the society in order to create a system which could propose a multi-spectral solution for major concerns of the community like water, health, education, food, etc.

Going through culture of SSA communities we will notice gender boundaries are separating men and women based on some traditions and thoughts which were shaped many years ago. In fact, most of the societies originating from “hunter gather” or “masculine dominance” in

the past embraced these social hierarchies to become part of their traditions which continue to this day. Even though much of the ancient way of life has evolved, these social standings still remine quite archaic. So, how we can have a fair division of society roles between women and men giving both same opportunities to benefit from?

 

The intervention has been proposed for rural areas in Northern region of Ghana. The model is empowering women as economic actors for diversifying income of the community. Considering the existing cultural structure of societies, men are considered participants in this model as well as women working for development. The model is managing money earned from the local economic activity. Then distributing the capital within different sectors including: community welfare, education, and other pressing issues for the community. The goal of this model is to train and involve locals in all parts so that the model could sustain successfully in future. Also, an assessment trip has been proposed in the Intervention chapter emphasizing the importance of grounded research and how assumptions need to be tested locally at the site of the project. Also, Missing information about the community’s inner workings can be observed first hand to establish a foundation for pre-design and design phases.