Vulnerability

 Support for the physically challenged, Disability as they say is not inability. In recent times the involvement of the physically challenged in promoting the development of societies across the world through God given talents cannot be down played.

The situation is not any different in the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo district; the survey reveals that 74.6% people feel that little support services exist in the district for the physically challenged. Apart from families who may support these members by virtue of them bring family members; the only form of organised societal support is the disability fund which is a percentage of the District Assembly Common Fund set aside for the physically challenged.

Gender

The female population in the District constitutes 52% of the total population. Women play an important role in the socio-economic life of the people. Women are responsible for planting harvesting, storage and marketing of farm produce. They also assist the men in dry season cultivation, transportation and marketing of onions, tomatoes, okra, pepper and other vegetables.

In the District, women are engaged in weaving, pottery, shea nut picking and processing, rice parboiling and processing, dawadawa processing, groundnut oil extraction, charcoal burning, gathering and sale of firewood among others. Although women perform these crucial roles in the society, they have little access to productive resources. Inadequate access to credit also inhibits expansion of their economic activities such as rice milling, groundnut oil extraction, dawadawa and shea butter processing.

Apart from performing most of the labour on the farm, women do all domestic chores in addition to taking care of their children and providing water for family use. Low female enrollment and high drop-out rate of the girl-child is a common phenomenon. Women are underrepresented in leadership positions. This means that high illiteracy rate among women is not likely to change considering the fact that illiteracy is one of the major problem of under-development, high illiteracy of women in the Bawku West District is a severe limitation to development.

Gender Roles

Men and women in rural communities of the District have highly differentiated roles. They are assigned specific tasks to their sexes. Traditionally, men are expected to grow and provide grain for the family main meals, while women provide soup ingredients to go with the meals as well as other household needs such as kerosene, soap, etc. Women responsibility towards household upkeep is on the increase. Their roles and responsibilities have gone beyond providing soup ingredients and basic household items to actually providing the grains. They also incur additional expenses of the family in areas of child education and medical bills. The relatively low participation of women in public level decision making process affects their ability to participate in discussions with development agencies in matters affecting their well-being since their numbers are limited in development committee. The cumulative effects of these problems on the women are poverty, ignorance and low standard

Poverty Situation

Poverty situation in the district

A baseline survey indicated that, the poverty situation in the district is high. Notwithstanding the numerous development potential of the area, the entire district is hit with excorticating poverty.

Agriculture is the main stay of the people but sadly, the district has a rocky and hilly landscape which in most cases not very supportive for Agricultural production. The average hectares cultivated is between (1-5) hectares making them subsistence. Even the produce cultivated, they lack markets for them and access roads hence making produce perish on farmland.

The youth are often jobless and idling and because of high population growth if the area, there is a high dependency ratio dwindling sharply the incomes of families.

The district needs massive objection of resources to develop the road network, provide electricity and other social amenities in order to attract not only the sons and daughters back home to support the socio economic development efforts, hut investors who will explore the numerous development potentials abound in the district.

Agriculture needs to be given the attention it deserves by providing irrigation facilities so that farming will be engage all year round, and district authorities should help in providing markets for farmers to sell their produce in order to increase their incomes and support their families more.

Unemployment

The employment situation in the district is generally bad, as the survey results have shown. 91.4% of the respondents were of this view. A lot of factors w accounts for this.

Agriculture which engages most of the people is hampered by a myriad of difficulties resulting in the average hectares of land cultivated to be between (1-5) acres.

Availability of power which would have not only provided lights for various domestic and social activities, but also help in a industrial activities to promote the local economy is not existence in most part of the district capital. Commerce and industry is badly affected because of the lack of power.

The road network in the area is not helping matters as a lot of people who could have been attracted to the area to invest are deterred but for the bad roads.

Support for the physically challenged, Disability as they say is not inability. In recent times the involvement of the physically challenged in promoting the development of societies across the world through God given talents cannot be down played.

The situation is not any different in the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo district; the survey reveals that 74.6% people feel that little support services exist in the district for the physically challenged. Apart from families who may support these members by virtue of them bring family members; the only form of organised societal support is the disability fund which is a percentage of the District Assembly Common Fund set aside for the physically challenged.

Revenue and expenditure

The principal sources of revenue for the Bunkpurugu District Assembly are shown in the figure below.

During the last plan period (2010-2013) the Internal Revenue Generation had improved tremendously especially during 2012 but more needs to be done for further improvements in this area. Despite the improvement in Internally Generated Funds (IGFs), the Assembly still depends heavily on Donor Funding, the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) and the District Development Facility(DDF) which is used to fund capital intensive projects especially in the construction sector. Below is a table highlighting the revenue performance from 2010