Fighting rural poverty: understanding livelihood diversification strategies and patterns of women in northern region of Ghana

Rural poverty remains a challenge among developing countries including Ghana. Livelihood diversification has been employed as one of the strategies to mitigate the teething poverty in Northern Ghana. Although lauded as a potential source of poverty eradication, limited studies have been conducted to understand the livelihood diversification strategies of poor and vulnerable women in Northern Ghana. This present paper identified and discussed the livelihood diversification strategies of women in Northern Ghana. Mixed approach involving both quantitative and qualitative techniques was used as the main methodologies for the study. The findings identified the common livelihood diversification strategies of women to include she abutter processing, rice processing, petty trading, groundnut processing, gari processing, fuel hood hewing, fish mongering and food vending. It was revealed that the strategies employed by women were influenced by local resources and location. The study also observed that limited livelihood diversification strategies compelled women to undertake destructive activities such as wood hewing/charcoal production, which negatively affect the environment. Furthermore, the results identified limited resources such as credit, machinery and market to constrain women’s non-farm activities. It recommended that rural policy should provide the needed resources to the poor women engaged in non-farm livelihoods, because it contributes greatly to improving women’s living standards.