Wissenbach, Lars
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Publication Access status: Open Access , Challenges of inclusion : local support systems and social service arrangements for persons with disabilities in Suhum, Ghana : Baseline Study ReportThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) obliges States Parties to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of person with disabilities. The Republic of Ghana ratified the CRPD in 2012 and started to adopt legislative and policy measures for its implementation at all government levels. But how are these legislative and policy measures being taken up in Ghanaian districts? Which approaches for a local implementation of the CRPD prove to be effective in Ghana? These and further questions were addressed by researchers of the Department of Social Work at the University of Ghana and the Centre for Planning and Evaluation of Social Services (ZPE) at University of Siegen, Germany in a Pilot Project at Suhum Municipal, in the Eastern Region of Ghana, implemented between July 2017 and June 2018. This report presents the findings of a qualitative baseline study on support systems and social service arrangements for persons with disabilities in Suhum, which was conducted in late 2017 as part the pilot project.Source Type:BookDOI:10.25819/ubsi/33Series:ZPE-SchriftenreiheVolume number:521364 795 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Disability and Social Protection in Ghana(2026)The book offers valuable insights into contemporary debates on disability and the development of social protection systems in Ghana and other countries of the so-called Global South, addressing perspectives that have received limited attention in existing scholarship. By integrating historical perspectives and contemporary philosophical debates on African conceptions of community, personhood, reciprocity, and social justice with resource theories and empirical evidence, the author develops a nuanced framework for understanding the relationship between public and indigenous social protection. Based on the experiences and perspectives of users with disabilities, the study offers new insights into the complementarity of state and indigenous social protection structures and their significance for inclusive development. Over the past decades, public social protection has emerged as a critical pillar of the international development discourse. Social protection programmes in countries of the so-called Global South have undergone systematic expansion, driven by multilateral and bilateral development agencies. This trajectory is also evident in Ghana, where a neoliberal approach to social protection, centred primarily on targeted transfers for specific groups, was established in the wake of structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s and 90s. Among other critiques, it has been challenged for isolating vulnerability from the broader systemic processes that have produced the very conditions it seeks to address. At a practical level, this meta-critique is closely connected to the issue of context responsiveness in social protection schemes, a concern that lies at the core of this study's research focus. Ghana’s current social protection schemes operate predominantly as economic interventions, often overlooking other forms of resources that complement economic support and are essential for sustaining livelihoods. This study focuses on these diverse resource forms, as well as the dynamics and institutional rules that govern their access, exchange and conservation. While social protection interventions are typically designed on the assumption that they align with the individual resource arrangements and needs of their intended beneficiaries, empirical evidence suggests only a weak correlation between externally defined resource perspectives and individuals’ subjective assessments of their resource situations. This discrepancy poses a significant challenge for the design and implementation of social protection schemes. The study examines selected public social protection programmes in Ghana – the Disability Common Fund, Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) – and their implications for the livelihoods of persons with disabilities. Drawing on qualitative interviews with programme users, disability advocates, and social welfare practitioners, it explores the explicit and implicit assumptions about beneficiaries’ individual resource arrangements that shape design and implementation practices of these programmes. It analyses the demands these assumptions place on recipients and assesses the extent to which they align with beneficiaries’ lived realities and perspectives.Source Type:Doctoral ThesisSeries:ZPE-SchriftenreiheVolume number:627 41 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Disability and Social Protection in Ghana(2026)Lars Wissenbach examines public social protection programmes in Ghana and their implications for the livelihoods of persons with disabilities. Drawing on qualitative interviews with programme users, disability advocates, and social welfare practitioners, the study explores the explicit and implicit assumptions about beneficiaries’ individual resource arrangements that shape programme design and implementation practices. It analyses the demands these assumptions place on recipients and assesses the extent to which they align with beneficiaries’ lived realities and perspectives. The book offers valuable insights into contemporary debates on disability and the development of social protection systems in Ghana and other countries of the so-called Global South. By integrating historical perspectives and contemporary philosophical debates on African conceptions of community, personhood, reciprocity, and social justice with resource theories and empirical evidence, the author develops a nuanced framework for understanding the relationship between public and indigenous social protection. Based on the experiences and perspectives of users with disabilities, the study offers new insights into the complementarity of state and indigenous social protection structures and their significance for inclusive development.Source Type:Doctoral ThesisSeries:ZPE-Schriftenreihe2 51 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Facilitating the interaction between citizens and local governments through information and communication technology (FACIL-ICT)FACIL-ICT is a Pilot project in Nsawam/Adoagyiri and Suhum municipalities in the Eastern region of Ghana. The project seeks to discover new possibilities for effectively improving communication between the people in rural communities and local government structures in the Municipalities through Information Communication Technology (ICT). It intends to build on current structures and practices to develop a two-way communication system between local government structures and the people in dispersed rural communities within the municipalities to provide information on health and social welfare service delivery.Source Type:BookSeries:ZPE-SchriftenreiheVolume number:58487 199 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Local Medium-Term Development Planning for People in Vulnerable SituationsThis research report was prepared as part of the project Local Development for the Inclusion of People in Vulnerable Situations (LOCDEV). The report draws on an empirical analysis of Ghana’s National Medium-Term Development Policy Framework 2022–2025 and 33 municipal and district development plans, as well as survey data and group discussions with local planning actors and social welfare officials. It examines the extent to which the country’s medium-term development planning system provides opportunities for a systematic mainstreaming of the rights and needs of people in vulnerable situations into local development processes. The report presents findings on the structures, processes, and practices through which vulnerability is addressed within local planning. It concentrates on group–specific aspects of vulnerability, as reflected in planning documents, including childhood, youth, old age, gender, disability, and mental health. Both the substantive treatment of these issues and their institutional integration within planning structures and processes are examined. Findings suggest that despite uniform national planning guidelines, local planning practices exhibit a variety of approaches and patterns for addressing these issues. This variation indicates, on the one hand, a degree of discretion that local governments can exercise. On the other hand, it reveals opportunities for peer exchange and collective learning to strengthen vulnerability-responsive local development planning. Therefore, the report also aims to encourage the development of peer exchange and collective learning processes on vulnerability-responsive planning among local government stakeholders.Source Type:BookSeries:ZPE-SchriftenreiheVolume number:6128 50