Research Activities

An IDRC funded project

The Centre is currently working on a project titled, 'Interrogating Large-Scale Land Acquisition and its Implication on Women'-an IDRC (International Development Research Centre) sponsored research project which seeks to investigate how and under what circumstances women can be empowered to effectively participate in the processes of large-scale land acquisition in order to ensure better accountability and legitimacy in land governance in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the project seeks to explore the de jure and de facto ways in which land transitions between rural traditional leaders and global capital takes place and the ways in which different constituencies (women and men in the communities, NGOs and state officials) contest these practices.

As part of this, a project launch/an inception of the project was organised on May 15, 2014 at YIRI Lodge to bring aboard stakeholders and experts on the issue to discuss the project in detail in terms of methodology, research questions, possible research sites and advocacy efforts.

The one-year research on "The usefulness and varieties of non-state social protection: A case study of the Central Region of Ghana" has come to an end. A country report as well as a technical report detailing the findings from the different countries has been submitted to PASGR for publication. In addition, the CEGENSA team has written a chapter for publication in a PALGRAVE book to be published next year. Findings of this study were presented at the Faculty of Social Science 2014 Colloquium and yet another component of the study will be presented at the International Association of Feminist Economists Conference to be held in Accra in late June 2014.

CEGENSA together with the Ark Foundation, Ghana and the DV Coalition, the Centre undertook a three year UNIFEM sponsored project on HIV/AIDS entitled "Ameliorating the effects of violence and HIV/AIDS infection among selected groups in Southern Ghana". In 2011, CEGENSA could not organize most of its planned activities because UN Women [funders] were unable to transfer money. They have however promised to send the money this month to begin activities for year three. The Principal Investigator on the CEGENSA side is Prof. Akosua Adomako-Ampofo.

Pathways of Women's Empowerment Research Consortium is a five (5) year project funded by the Department of International Development, UK (DFID), which seeks to explore the variety and complex pathways that women around the world have sought to empower themselves while seeking to shape policy by interactions with policy institutions and policy makers through research and communications.

This was an IDRC funded project which seeks to examine the changing nature of women's work, with particular reference to the banking and domestic sectors. It aims to produce knowledge about women's work in the two sectors to strengthen the appreciation of the implications of informalisation of work for the quality of work. This project is in its third and final year and CEGENSA is in the process of finalising year three's technical and financial reports.