Impact of CLIP Project on the Livelihood Outcomes of Sheabutter Processing Women in Karaga District of Northern Region, Ghana
Keywords:
Impact, CLIP, project, livelihood, outcomes, sheabutter, processing, women, Karaga district, Northern Region,, GhanaAbstract
The Northern sector of Ghana is far under-developed with low-income economy. About 69%, 88% and 84% of the populations of Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions respectively live in abject poverty. In recognition of the fact that the shea industry has a great potential and could help alleviate poverty in the three Northern regions, and most especially among the rural women, The Community Life Improvement Programme (CLIP) was established in 1997 to help boost the shea industry through the institution of micro-credit scheme to help the Northern women patronize, intensify and expand the sheabutter processing micro-business. The objective of the study therefore, was to evaluate the impact of the CLIP project on the livelihood outcomes of women in the micro-scale sheabutter processing enterprise in Karaga district of Northern region. By means of purposive and snowball sampling techniques, 110 respondents (consisting of 80 beneficiary and 30 non-beneficiary women) were interviewed for the study. An interview guide and focus group discussions were used to obtain information from the sheabutter processing women. Relevant literature documents of the CLIP project were also consulted. From the survey, the activities undertaken by CLIP to improve the livelihood of the beneficiary sheabutter processors were identified and the impact of the project on the beneficiary women assessed. The results of the study revealed that the livelihood outcomes of the beneficiary women have been improved. The study further revealed that the livelihood outcomes of the beneficiary women were far better off as compared to that of the non-beneficiary women of the CLIP project. The study recommended that, the CLIP project should expand its base to cover many more sheabutter processing women in the target communities, and intensify its training and monitoring activities.
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