Information Communication Technology (ICT)
   Introduction

This chapter discusses ownership of mobile phones and use of internet facilities by persons aged 12 years and above in the Bodi District. Both are considered by background characteristics such as sex and locality of residence. Ownership of desktop/laptop computers and the presence of a fixed telephone line are also considered at the household level.

Ownership of Mobile Phones

Table 5.1 shows the population 12 years and older by mobile phone ownership and sex in the district. Out of the total population 12 years and older of 34,648, 50.9 percent are males and 49.1 percent are females. Forty-seven percent of the population own mobile phones, with the proportion of males (53.4%) having mobile phones being higher than that of the females (35%).

Use of Internet

The use of Internet is generally low in the district as shown in Table 5.1. Out of the total 34,648 persons who are 12 years and older, only 332 (1%) use Internet facility. The proportion of males using this facility is 1.4 percent compared with less than one percent (0.5%) for the females. 

Household ownership of Desktop or Laptop computer

Very few households in the district own desktop or laptop computers. From Table 5.2, households that own a desktop or laptop computer are 3.0 percent. Ownership of a desktop or laptop computer is slightly higher among female-headed households (2.7%) than male headed-households (2.3%). 

The limited access of households to fixed telephone lines reflects both national and global trends. Increasing mobile communication technologies, particularly the mobile phone has resulted in declining use of fixed telephone lines even in the developed world. The establishment of the mobile phone infrastructure is relatively cheap, hence, the increasing investments in the mobile phone and other mobile technology platforms.

It needs to be stressed the low usage of internet must be a concern to government and the Bodi District Assembly, as the internet is viewed as the technology of the present and the future due to its versatility in the areas of education, health, government, etc. However, low usage of the internet is due to a number of factors, including low education in computer education; low income and; limited and weak ICT infrastructure (Awotwi and Owusu 2007).

    HOUSING CONDITIONS

Introduction

The 2010 Population and Housing Census is the second national census which included a comprehensive housing census. It provided an official count of all structures (permanent and temporary) within the nation. Among the issues in this chapter for discussion are the numbers of occupied dwelling units; the type of dwelling and the main materials used in house construction, occupancy status, and methods of waste disposal, utilities and household facilities. The information from housing censuses serve as a basis for planning housing and human settlement programmes and policies, evaluation and monitoring of housing conditions and needs of the population.

Housing Stock

The housing stock of Bodi District is presented in Table 8.1. The data reveals that there are 52,315 households residing in 9,391 houses. This gives an average of 1.1 households per house. The average household size of rural (4.9) communities is lower than the average household size in urban (7.1) areas. The district remains largely rural with 62.9 percent of the total population. The high proportion of rural housing stock than that of the urban may be due to the ease of acquiring land and availability of local building materials in the rural communities. In addition, rural-urban migration, which is common phenomenon in developing countries such as Ghana, may also be playing out here.

More importantly, the higher proportion of household stock in rural areas relative to the urban is also as a result of the Ghana’s stringent building codes and regulation. While the building codes which preclude the use of local building materials such as mud/mud bricks are strictly enforced in urban areas by MMDAs, enforcement of these codes are relaxed in rural areas – allowing the rural population to build using available local building materials. Hence, the high number of dwellings in rural areas, although many of these rural dwellings lack quality and vulnerable to the elements due to the extensive use of raw and unprocessed local building materials.

Type of Dwelling, Holding and Tenancy Arrangement
Ownership status

Ownership status of dwelling is shown by sex of head of households and type of locality. With a total of 10,773 households in the district, in 72.4 percent of houses are owned by members of the household. Thirteen percent of houses are owned by relative but who is not a member of the household. Other private individuals (8.5%) and private employers (3.7%) and other private agencies (0.67%) own the rest of houses.

Male-headed households account for the majority of about 77.5 percent of dwelling units while female heads own the rest (22.5%). Higher shares of male-headed (56.03%) relative to female-headed (16.55%) households live in dwelling units owned by members of the household. With respect to the rural-urban distribution of dwelling units, about 71.6 percent of the rural housing units are owned by household members, while it is 81.5 percent in the case of urban areas.

Occupied dwelling 

This section looks at type of occupied dwelling by sex of household’s heads and type of locality. Of the 10,773 households in the district, 41.3% are in separate houses, 49.9% occupy compound houses (see Table 8.3). The others semi-detached houses (4.1%); flats/apartments (2.9%) and; huts tents, improvised houses, uncompleted buildings dwelling accounting for 1.8 percent. 

Table 8.3 further shows that female-headed households in compound houses are slightly higher (59.2%) than male-headed (47.1%) households in similar housing units. Male headed-households in separate houses account for 43.4 percent and 34.2 percent for female heads.In terms of urban-rural distribution, Table 8.3 shows that 50.2 percent of rural households live in compound houses while 40.5 percent live separate houses. Forty-nine point four percent of rural households live in separate houses while 46.8 percent live in compound houses. Less than one percent of the urban rural households live in tents, hunt, living quarters, improvised houses and uncompleted buildings.

Construction Materials

The type of construction materials used in the construction of dwelling units gives indication of not only the socio-economic status of the owner and occupants but also has implications for the health of the occupants. Indeed, the type of materials used has effects on ambient indoor air quality and with the potential to serve hidden places for rodents and pests. In addition, the materials used in construction affect the appearance and quality of dwellings. 

Main construction material for outer wall

This sub-section outlines the type of materials used for the construction of outer walls in the District. Overall, cement blocks/concrete and mud brick/earth are the two main materials used for the construction of outer walls in the district, accounting for 43.1 percent and 73.4 percent in urban and rural areas respectively (see Table 8.4).

Table 8.4 further shows that the use of mud brick/earth is the most common material for the construction of outer wall, accounting for 70.3 percent of all dwellings in the district. The proportion is, however, relatively high in the rural areas (73.4%) as compared to the urban areas (43.1%). The extensive use of this local material for the construction of the outer walls of dwellings in rural areas is due to reasons outlined in Section 8.2. 

On the other hand, the use of cement blocks/cement for outer wall is higher in urban (53.3%) compared to rural (19.2%) areas, largely due issues of cost and strictly enforcement of building codes and regulations in urban areas requiring the cement of this material for construction. The use of bamboo, palm leaf/thatch (grass)/raffia and other materials for construction in the district is rare with urban and rural households reporting less than one percent of dwellings constructed with these materials.

Main Construction material for the floor

Types of materials used for floors of houses affect the appearance and quality of the house. The usage of particular flooring materials is often predicated on the socio-economic status of the household members or owners. As shown in Table 8.5, floors were largely made of cement or concrete (94.0%) and earth or mud (4.5%). 
Ceramic/porcelain/granite/marble tiles or terrazzo are least (0.1%) used for flooring in the district and its proportional use in both localities (urban-rural) is the same. Similarly, a fraction of households still uses stone/wood (0.1%) and vinyl tiles (0.2%) respectively.

Table 8.6 presents the distribution of main materials used for roofing in the district. The materials include metal sheet, bamboo, wood, roofing tiles and so on. Metal sheet is the main roofing material (91.2%) and it is used virtually in similar proportions in urban (96.5%) and rural (90.7%) communities

Main construction material for roofing

Table 8.6 presents the distribution of main materials used for roofing in the district. The materials include metal sheet, bamboo, wood, roofing tiles and so on. Metal sheet is the main roofing material (91.2%) and it is used virtually in similar proportions in urban (96.5%) and rural (90.7%) communities
The second highest roofing material is thatch/palm leaf or raffia (4.1%) followed by bamboo (1.3%). However the use of cement/concrete is common in the rural localities (1.2%) than the urban localities (0.6%). 

Room Occupancy

Information on number of sleeping rooms available to a household determines whether or not the household is overcrowded or not. Members of overly crowded households can have poor health outcomes than non-crowded households. Tuberculosis for instance spreads faster in crowded environments than the reverse. From Table 8.7, 45.2 percent of households live in one room. Approximately 29 percent live in two rooms, 11.8 percent live in three rooms, 6.1 percent live four rooms and 3.1 percent live in six rooms. Thus, more than 50 percent of households do not meet the UN standard or requirement of 1 person to 1 room.

Table 8.7 further reveals that in 68.7 percent of households, an average of 2 persons live in one room, while 25.2 percent live in two rooms. Around 3.5 percent live in three rooms, 3.1 percent live in three rooms, while 1.7 percent of households of seven live in seven. There is a general trend of unavailability of sleeping rooms for higher household sizes. This has implications for the occupants in terms of congestion, health and sanitation.

Access to Utilities and Household Facilities
Main source of lighting of dwelling

As societies develop, the use of low quality sources of lighting (e.g. firewood) also shifts towards more efficient ones such as electricity. Table 8.8 and Figure 8.1 depict the main sources of lighting of dwelling units by type of locality. The three main sources of lighting in households are flashlight (49.2%), electricity (main) (36.1%), and kerosene lamp (12.4%). Put together, all other sources of energy contribute 2.2 percent (see Table 8.8 and Figure 8.1)
Urban and rural households report differential access and utilisation of sources of lighting in dwellings.

Households in urban centres reported higher accessibility to electricity from the national grid (82.4%) in contrast to rural households (31.3%). On the other hand, rural households utilised flashlight/torchlight (53.3) more than urban households (8.8%). The use of kerosene lamps was about twice (13%) more in rural areas compared to urban areas (6.7%).

Source of energy for cooking

Table 8.9 and Figure 8.2 show that the main source of energy for cooking is wood but some variations are noted in urban and rural households. In the rural areas, 88.2 percent of households use wood as source of cooking energy compared to 74.9 percent in urban households. The next important source of energy for cooking is charcoal but it is more prominent in urban (18.8%) areas more than in rural (6.0%) dwelling units. The use of electricity, crop residue, saw dust, animal waste and others are less popular in both rural and the urban communities.

Main cooking space used by household

Roofed structures without walls are the predominant spaces for cooking in rural areas (97.5%) as compared to the urban (2.5%). Dwellings with cooking spaces in the open but within the compound is 96.1 percent and 3.9 percent in rural respectively.

Dwellings with enclosure without roof in the rural and urban communities are (94.32%) and (5.68%) respectively. Dwellings with separate roof with other households in the rural and the urban communities are (91.29%) and (8.71%) respectively. Dwellings with separate room for exclusive use of households in the rural and urban communities is (90.83%) and (9.17%) respectively.

Dwellings with veranda for cooking space in the rural and urban communities are (85.66%) and (14.34%) respectively. Dwellings with no cooking space in the rural and the urban communities are (80.68%) and (19.32%) respectively. Lastly there is no household that uses 55 the bedroom, hall, or the living room as the cooking space in urban communities but a few in rural communities.