VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS

Persons with disability (PWD) have been defined as those who are unable to or are restricted in the performance of specific tasks/ activities due to loss of functions of some part of the body as a result of impairment or malformation (Ghana Statistical Service, 2012). As a result, PWDs face a wide range of life challenges because disability in whatever form or type, can reduce an individual’s ability to function to his/her full potential. Disability can limit an individual’s full participation in a number of activities in life.

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In an attempt to understand the situation of PWDs as a guide for policy formulation, the Ghana Statistical Service, for the first time, collected specific data on PWDs in the 2010 Population and Housing Census. This chapter discusses the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of PWDs from the data. It describes population with disability, type of disability, distribution by type of locality, disability and activity, and disability, education and literacy.

Population with Disability

Generally, there are 3, 633 persons with one form of disability or the other in the District. The number of disable persons in the District (3.1%) is relatively higher than the regional and national figure of 2.6 and 3.0 respectively (Table 6.1). Also there are slightly more males persons (51.8%) with disability than females (48.2%).

Types of Disability

Table 6.1 and Figure 6.1 present type of disability with their corresponding shares of the population in the District. The population with some form of disability, visual/sight impairment (36.6%) is the most common disability, followed by physical challenges (23.6%) and emotional problems (16.0%). Visual or sight impairment is also the most common form of disability among both males (35.9%) and females (37.4%).

Distribution by Type of Locality

In urban communities, there are 704 persons with disability, representing about 19.4 percent, out of which 320 PWDs are males (3.5%) while 384 are females (3.9%). Persons with sight impairment (42.6%) top the list with 42.6percent, followed by those with emotional problems (24.6%), and physical challenges (23.0%). The lowest proportion is persons with other disability.

On the other hand, there are 2,929 persons with disability, representing 80.6 percent of the rural population. The highest disability rate in the rural communities are persons with visual or sight impairment (35.2%), followed by those with physical challenges (23.8%) and speech disorder (16.1%) while the lowest are persons with intellectual malfunctioning (12.3%), as shown in Table 2.55.

Disability and Activity Status

The population 15 years and older is 65,974 of which 4.5% are persons with some form of disability while 95.5% are without disability.

The horizontal analysis of Table 6.2 suggests that, about 7 in ten (1,949) disable persons constituting 66.3 percent are economically active, while 33.7 percent (992) are economically not active. Also, there are 1,905 persons with disability that are employed, representing 97.7%, compared to 2.3 percent of unemployed (44). Moreover, a greater percentage of disable persons is by sight (40.0%), followed by physical and hearing (23.6 and 14.1 respectively). 365 persons, representing 12.4 percent, are also disable with speech in the District. Additionally, almost all persons disable by sight (98.2%), physical (96.8%), hearing (98.2%), including those with speech disability (98.8%) are employed in the District. In contrast, 33.9, 50.2, 32.8 and 29.9 percent of these form of disabilities, respectively, are economically not active.

In terms of sex, there are more disabled males (1,525) representing 51.9 percent than their female counterparts, constituting 7.5 percent (1,416). Also, there are greater percentage of disable males that are employed (1,037) representing 97.6 percent than females (97.9%). From Table 6.2, it can also be construed that, the number of unemployed disable males (30.4%) and females (37.4%) that are not available for work (not economically active) are greater than the disable males (2.4%) and females (2.1%) that are unemployed.

Disability, Education and Literacy

Table 6.3 presents the population three years and older with disability by sex, disability type and level of education. Among persons with disability, about 41 percent (41.1%) had never attended school while over 58 percent (58.9%) had obtained some level of education of which 48 percent had basic (Primary, Middle/JSS/JHS) education. Among persons with hearing impairments, 51.4 percent had never attended school, while, out of those who had any form of education, primary school (20.4) is the highest level majority had attended, followed by middle/JSS/JHS (20.0%).

Only 32.1 percent of males with disabilities had never attended school, and for those who had some form of education, 40 percent of males with sight and emotional problems had attended middle/JSS/JHS which is their highest level. On the other hand, a little more than half (50.8%) of females with various type of disabilities had never been to school. Among those with sight impairments, JSS/JHS is the highest level (24.0%) attended by those who had attended school.

GENDER

Accessibility to land which is one of the basic determinants of economic opportunities favors men due to cultural factors. Inheritance of property in the family usually favors the male folk.

Participation of women in decision making especially at the Unit, Area Council levels and District Assembly is not encouraging. Women are usually relegated to the background. Here again cultural factors are among some of the reasons for preventing participation of women.

The parity of boys and girls in schools is however encouraging at the Primary and JHS levels of the educational ladder. However, the same cannot be said of the SHS and Tertiary levels.

The implication of these is that more women should be encouraged to take up political appointments at all levels of decision making. Girl-Child education at the SHS and Tertiary levels must also be promoted.

1. Inadequate access to electricity
2. Poor road infrastructure
3. Inadequate J.S.S. block
4. Lack of place for marketing activities
5. Inadequate teachers quarters
6. Poor Primary school infrastructure
7. Inadequate K.G facilities
8. Inadequate potable water
9. Poor access to health facilities
10. Poor access to library facilities
11. Inadequate police station
12. Inadequate to credit facilities
13. Poor access to postal services
14. Lack of place for community meetings