Impact of Household Decision Making Criteria on Access to Productive Capital in Northern Ghana: A Baseline Evidence of The United States Government’s Feed The Future (FTF) Programme

Abstract

Resources are the key considerations for rural livelihoods. Rural households negotiate their livelihoods by obtaining access to land, labour, capital, knowledge and market, which leads to enhanced family well-being and sustainable use of resources. Much has been written about the importance of household decision criteria in accessing productive capital/resources and in designing and implementing agricultural development projects. Using a cross-sectional data from United States Government’s feed the future initiative; this study employed the Probit model to determine the impact of household decision criteria on access to productive capital/resources. A total sample size of 11196 farm households were selected from Northern Ghana for the study. The result of the probit model revealed gender, ownership of productive resource, household decision criteria as the significant variables in accessing productive capital/resources. The study therefore calls on donors, NGOs and government organisations to initiate integration of resource allocation in development policies and programmes for sustainable development.

Keywords: Access, Decision making criteria, Probit model, Productive capital/resource, Ghana