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B r i e f i n g 

No. 7, September 2008 

SNV - Ghana, Northern Portfolio, Tamale 

Tamale Learning Festival 2007 

Sharing knowledge and experiences for development 

in Northern Ghana 

The third annual Learning Festival was hosted by SNV in Tamale on 9 November 2007. The festival 

aims to celebrate learning among clients, partners and stakeholders SNV is working with. The central 

theme of this Learning Festival was ‘access’ and included four parallel workshops (mini-durbars) on 

four themes taken up by SNV in Northern Ghana: national health insurance schemes, girls education, 

renewable energy and value chain management. This briefing shares key highlights from this event. 

“Floods in Northern Ghana: 

Dealing with Disaster” 

As if developing Ghana is not challenging 

enough, Northern Ghana was struck by unprecedented 

floods in early September 2007. 

The floods caused humanitarian problems on a 

scale the country had not experienced in many 

years. It had left over 60 people dead, destroyed 

houses and schools, disrupted food 

supply and led to loss of stock. Government 

figures indicated that 332.600 people were affected. 

How to deal with such a disaster when 

it presents itself? What are the developmental 

challenges for non governmental organisations? 

Does it present opportunities? These are some 

of the questions Prof Kranjac Gordana, Vice 

Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, UDS, addressed 

in the afternoon lecture of the festival. 

On the 12 th of September 2007 the Government 

of Ghana declared the three Northern Regions 

a disaster zone. The president established 

an Inter-Ministerial Disaster Relief Committee, 

with regional and district taskforces. 

Furthermore, a Joint Rapid Assessment was 

initiated in the affected regions to coordinate 

the relief operations and to consolidate existing 

information on the humanitarian situation. 

In case of such a big disaster, organisations 

need to urgently address the immediate needs, 

such as provision of food and shelter, to prevent 

epidemic outbreaks. Also looking at the 

Connecting people’s capacities


SNV briefing No. 1, September 2008 

medium and longer term, it is 

useful to assess four components 

of the disaster more specifically: 

food security, water 

and sanitation, health and nutrition, 

education. 

Food security 

The major concern lies with the 

lost crop and food, since stocks 

will not be replenished until next year’s harvest. 

Special attention is needed for pregnant 

or lactating women and malnourished children 

under 5 years. The majority of displaced persons 

are living with host families, placing increasing 

pressure on household food security. 

In the future, the floods may result in ecological 

changes in food production, since the dams 

that are now destroyed, provided water for 

farming even during the dry season. 

Water and sanitation 

The lack of access to safe drinking water poses 

an imminent threat worsened by the loss and 

damage of physical structures of the water 

supply facilities. Therefore, immediate response 

includes the distribution of aqua tablets and 

ceramic filters. The most exposed water 

sources are the open wells, which represents 

the majority of wells in the affected areas. 

Therefore, the medium and long-term response 

include hygiene promotion, rehabilitation 

of latrines and disinfection 

of existing water supply 

sources. 

Health and nutrition 

Potential outbreak of waterborne 

diseases and acute malnutrition 

is a common risk following 

flood. Close monitoring 

can discover abnormal trends as early as possible. 

Pregnant women, babies and children below 

the age of five are particularly vulnerable 

and supplementary feeding is necessary. 

Education 

Some schools have collapsed and many are 

badly damaged. There is however an important 

indirect risk. Due to increased poverty and loss 

of sources of income, parents may send their 

older children to the cities to find work and/or 

keep their younger children and especially girls 

out of school to work in the household or in the 

farms. 

Ways forward 

Although it may seem contradictory, professor 

Kranjac claims that the occurrence of such a 

disaster also presents opportunities. She raised 

the question ‘how to move forward from here?’ 

In addition to the emergency response, actions 

Tamale Learning Festival 

The SNV team in Tamale, officially launched in November 2005, sees as its key challenge to add value to existing development efforts by focusing on assisting local organizations (be they 

civil society, local government or private sector) to play their role more effective as well as by concentrating on fostering relationships between all these different actors. 

The Learning Festival fits within this approach, as it creates opportunities for different organizations to share their experiences and insight with each other. The Festival is to be held on an 

annual basis. In 2005 the first festival coincided with the official launch of the portfolio team in Northern Ghana (on 11 November). The Learning Festival then is intended to play the following 

roles: 

Linking: To create a platform for bringing our clients together. 

Profiling: To make visible to partners and clients the range of activities we are involved in, the contacts we have and the work we are doing. 

Learning: To provide an opportunity to participants to reflect and share case studies and best practices. By providing access to learning opportunities, SNV acts as a knowledge broker and 

affords opportunities to its client organizations and partners to build their capacities. 

The themes for the mini-durbars reflect the SNV teams’ main pre-occupations. In 2005 the four key-themes were: the shea sector, micro-finance, girls’ education and MDG localization. In 

2006 the four key-themes were: school feeding programmes, tourism, shea value chain and improving access to natural resources. 

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are required to address the medium and longterm 

needs. She argues that we need to ‘stop 

fire fighting single problems’ and ‘start looking 

for sustainable solutions’. Instead of gradual 

change, there is a need for ‘transformational 

change’. During the discussion we agreed that 

due to climate change, such extreme flooding 

may occur more frequently. Prediction of such 

flooding could improve through more systematic 

weather assessments. Furthermore, the 

issue was raised whether we could learn from 

countries like Burkina Faso, which manages to 

capture and harvest water on a large scale. 

‘SNV is breaking new ground in Tamale with their 

Learning Festival. Asking people to come without any 

payment or compensation, and yet they turn up 

in large numbers. 

It demonstrates that we are now ready to learn 

and are willing to invest in it’ 

Mini durbar 1: Do Health Insurance Schemes contribute sufficiently to creating access to health services? 

Convenors: Rita Tetteh-Quarshie (SNV) and Thomas Shaibu Imoro (Chair, Tamale HIS) 

Facilitator: Chrys Pul (SNV) 

Presentations: 

Konlan Lambouyag (Health wise, Tamale): Healthcare financing in Ghana: Past, Present and Future 

Siat Kanturib (SIMLI AID): Promoting pro-poor access to health; local level experiences 

Bertram Van der Wal (SNV Burkina Faso): Burkina Faso’s bottom-up approach of Health Insurance 

Iddrisu Tanko (Tamale teaching hospital): Access to healthcare from the providers point of view 

Ken Wujangi (Saboba DHIS Board chairman): How does the provision of institutions and structures support access to healthcare? 

The District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme 

(DMHIS) was established in 2003 to replace the 

“cash and carry” system and to bridge the poverty 

and equity gap in access to quality healthcare 

in Ghana. The NHIS is also said to be a 

better option in financing 

health care with a 

human face. 

Most districts in Ghana 

have now established 

and operate health insurance 

schemes. These 

schemes are facing various 

challenges, ranging 

from internal structural issues to issues related 

to external relationships. Regarding the latter, 

providers are important actors for the sustainability 

of the schemes. 

The objective of the minidurbar 

on NHIS is to bring 

together stakeholders in 

NHIS to share their experiences 

and also to learn 

from others on the question 

whether the schemes 

contribute sufficiently to 

creating access to health”? 

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The NHIS mini-durbar was attended by twenty 

two (22) participants from various districts 

schemes and Non Governmental Organisations 

(NGOs), active in health care. 

Following are some of the issues discussed in 

the mini-durbar: 

well understood by most participants. For 

instance, they wonder how these regional 

schemes can vet claims of facilities with 

which they have not signed contracts. 

♦ Most providers had never experienced being 

monitored before. The schemes now 

serve as a monitoring body through the vetting 

of claims. 

♦ Between 2001 and 2003 a team was put in 

place to study the existing options for implementation 

in Ghana. The current NHIS 

model is a mixture of the formal and informal 

sector. 

♦ Procedures in creating community structures 

of the scheme were not followed, causing 

absent or weak community structures, 

which threatens trust, sustainability and 

ownership by community member. 

♦ An increase in utilisation of health services 

may be observed, which is an objective 

of the introduction of NHIS. 

It was concluded that it is a key challenge to 

sustain interest and maintain the momentum of 

people to register and renew their cards. Information 

dissemination should target attitudinal 

and behavioural change of clients, rather than 

awareness creation by letting people know 

about the existence of schemes. Furthermore, 

balance is needed between the demand and 

supply sides of the schemes. Stakeholder collaboration, 

consultation and negotiations is 

needed to increase trust, ownership and sustainability 

of the schemes. 

♦ However, demand outstrips supply and lack 

of staff coupled with bureaucracy at service 

points cause long waiting time and put 

schemes in distress. 

♦ It was observed that dynamics in 

neighbouring country Burkina Faso are different. 

The formal sector health insurance is 

organised. RAMS, a network organisation 

supporting mutual health insurance 

schemes, is helping to create insurance 

schemes at local level. 

♦ The last speaker shared the dilemma of a 

seemingly ‘recentralisation’. It is a dilemma, 

because it may go against the original 

intention to create a bottom up and community 

owned system. However, participants 

also acknowledge that capacity on district 

level is often weak. 

♦ The position of the recent creation of a 

regional insurance scheme office is not 

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Mini-durbar 2. Creating access to Education in Northern Ghana: whose responsibility? 

Convenors: Justina Anglaaere (SNV); Tijani Hamza (IBIS); Saani Yakubu (AAIG) 

Facilitator: Samuel A. Zan (SEND Foundation) 


Mr. Abubakari Inusah Alhaji, (Deputy coordinating director of Savelugu-Nanton District): How are partnerships working to enhance access to quality education - the case 

of Savelugu-Nanton District 

Representative, (Community member from AAIG partner community & regional education office): Are capitation grants creating access to education for the poor in 

Northern Ghana? Perspectives from the community & GES 

Mrs. Rosemond Kumah, (ISODEC Northern Ghana Programme Coordinator): Are girls effectively accessing quality education in Northern Region - the case of West 

Mamprusi District 

Mr. Mohammed Abdul Kudus, (GSFP Regional Coordinators N/R&UER): The reality of GSFP in creating access to education by the poor in Northern Region– highlights 

from a joint study 

Mr. Edward Kapila ,(ACDEP): Aid effectiveness at the district level for increased access to quality education: challenges and the way forward 

In line with the central theme of the Tamale 

Learning Festival, the education mini durbar 

convened under the theme: ‘Creating Access to 

Education in Northern Ghana; Whose Responsibility?’ 

Participants came from a wide range of stakeholders 

in education and broadly comprising; 

decentralised government (District Assembly), 

policy implementing agencies (Ghana Education 

Service and the School Feeding programme Secretariat), 

civil society (NGOs, CBOs, Teachers’ 

Unions etc) and the forum convenors (SNV, 

IBIS and Action Aid- Ghana). 

The mini durbar provided a good forum to review 

different models aimed at expanding access 

to education in Northern Ghana, key lessons 

learned, challenges faced and policy recommendations. 

This was done through a mix of 

case study presentations, plenary discussions 

and a workshop session to agree key issues for 

presentation at the festival. 

Models for improving Access to Education 

Case studies on three models aimed at creating 

access to education were presented and 

discussed. These were: 

♦ District Assembly partnership with stakeholders 

in Savelugu-Nanton DA 

♦ Capitation Grant – views from the Ghana 

Education service and community. 

♦ The Ghana School Feeding Programme – A 

collaborative inventory by SNV and the 

School Feeding programme secretariat in 

Northern and Upper East Regions. 

A documentary study on girls’ access to education 

in one community was also presented by 

ISODEC. Also presented was the Paris Declaration 

on Aid Effectiveness and how that could 

work at the district level. 

Key issues from the case studies 

♦ Aggregate enrolment in schools have 

gone up even if it is difficult to attribute 

this to particular interventions; 

♦ Desired results are still far from being 

realised, particularly with reference to 

quality education; 

♦ Girls access is still very low as a result 

of many militating factors including sociocultural 

practices; 

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♦ Policies in themselves are good, but several 

implementation bottlenecks exist. 

Main challenges 

1. Limited classroom infrastructure to accommodate 

the modest gains in enrolment 

2. Socio-cultural issues affecting girls’ access 

e.g. foster parenting, betrothal, unequal 

sharing of house chores, etc 

3. Poor follow-up mechanisms to policy implementation 

4. Serious capacity gaps of policy implementing 

agencies; e.g. the School Feeding Secretariat 

has no means of transport to undertake 

monitoring visits 

5. Poor coordination of development resources 

and information at the District Assembly 

6. Poor linkage of education interventions 

with other development needs of the community 

like health, drinking water and food. 

For example, a community representative 

bemoans a school feeding programme in a 

community without safe drinking water. 

7. Ensure community participation and ownership 

of development interventions. 

In conclusion, we tried to answer the question 

‘Whose responsibility?’ It was felt that access 

to education is a collective effort of development 

actors including community members. 

This kind of partnership will only be effective if 

all actors are committed to building synergy in 

an open and transparent manner to seriously 

address the above constraints. 

Mini durbar 3: How to create access to energy for poor households in northern Ghana: opportunities for biogas and solar energy 

Convenors: Cynthia Awuni (SNV); Amadu Mahama (New Energy) 

Facilitator: Dr. Joshua Yidana (UDS) 


Miss Cynthia Awuni (SNV, Tamale): Introductory presentation on the overview of the mini durbar/some policy perspectives on energy 

Mr. Amadu Mahama (New Energy, Tamale): Prospects and challenges of solar energy in Northern Ghana/ special case for Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) approach. 

Mr. Erik van Waveren (SNV, Tamale): Biogas in Ghana; opportunities for market based development. 

Mr. Simon Kunyangna (World Vision, Tamale): The social marketing approach. 

Mr. Bismark Puseasor (GNADO, Navrongo): Improving access to the energy services for BoP; how can microfinance help? 

Only about half of the Ghanaian populations 

have access to electricity, 

with a disproportionate distribution 

among the three 

Northern Regions - 28.8%, 

14.7% and 18.0% for Northern, 

Upper East and Upper 

West regions respectively. 

Over the past year SNV got 

involved in the energy sector 

in northern Ghana. It has played a process facilitating 

role to assist Philips 

to provide solar lanterns for 

the poor and it is supporting 

KITE, an Accra based NGO, to 

carry out a feasibility study 

on biogas. This mini durbar 

on renewable energy created 

an overview on the two and 

ways to improve implementa- 

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tion to increase access to energy. Five presentations 

were made and 25 people attended this 

mini-durbar. Following are some of the issues 

that came up during the presentations and discussions: 

Solar energy 

♦ Only an estimated 0.1% of energy resources 

in Ghana comes from solar energy. 

♦ Barriers to access solar energy are ‘high 

upfront cost, lack of spare parts, poor quality 

products on the market, lack of maintenance 

skills, weak policy environment’. 

Biogas 

♦ The benefits of biogas compared to other 

energy resources are numerous. 

Implementation 

♦ It is crucial not to look at energy from a 

project perspective but looking into building 

an energy sector since projects are 

small and time-bound. 

♦ Rural people see the benefits and will be 

prepared to pay for it if assisted. Therefore 

availability of micro credit is needed. 

♦ Loans are related to seasonality, during 

best seasons loans are easily paid back but 

difficult to pay back in bad seasons. 

♦ For the rural communities the barter system 

is used as a way of paying back the 

money. 

Environment Health Gender Economy 

Reduces deforestation 

Reduces 

smoke 

Reduces 

work load 

Creates employment 

Improves soil 

fertility 

Improves livestock 

management 

Improves 

sanitation 

Improves 

crop production 

Improves 

livestock production 

Reduces Green 

House gasses 

Benefits from Biogas, compared to other energy resources 

♦ The plant requires about two (2) buckets of 

dung and water or urine a day to give gas 

for about two to three hours. The estimated 

cost of such a plant is about 800 GHC. 

♦ The key criteria for the market potential 

requires that an area has households with 

sufficient cattle kraaled at night, shortage of 

fuel wood and access to water. 

♦ Cow dung can be seen as a competing 

♦ 

element since it is also an ingredient for 

building and cementing of local housing 

structures therefore the possibility of conflict 

of use and interest. 

A commercial market approach will not 

benefit the poor. 

CDM revenues 

♦ A social marketing approach is necessary 

to enable communities to understand 

benefits, for instance: ‘provision of light to 

homes can be used to read in the evening, 

helping increase study time for children’. 

In conclusion, biogas and solar energy initiatives 

are laudable ideas, which need to be integrated 

into national policies for greater support. 

Further needs are, rationalization of tax 

policies on solar energy equipment, integration 

of solar energy services in the mandate of electricity 

distribution utilities, setting clear and 

measurable national energy policy goals and 

building capacity to take advantage of international 

financing opportunities. 

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Mini-durbar 4: The value chain approach as a tool for linking small producers to markets : Fad or Fact? 

Convenors: Maxwell Agbenorhevi (SNV, Ghana), Jean Marc Sika (SNV, Burkina Faso) 

Facilitator: Chris Bakaweri (SNV, Ghana) 

Presentations : 

Jean Marc Sika & Ousmane Ouedraogo (SNV, Burkina Faso): The SNV Burkina Faso experience 

Mark Fynn (GTZ): The GTZ Ghana experience 

Maxwell Agbenorhevi, (SNV, Ghana): The SNV Ghana experience 

Janet Adama, (ACDEP): The ACDEP experience 

High surge in incomes and demand, intense 

market liberalization, competition, fast paced 

technologies leading to rapid market changes 

and changing consumer tastes are all factors 

that have changed the nature of doing business. 

It was felt that old conceptual frameworks 

were lacking market focus and had become 

inadequate to account for the new 

trends, opportunities and constraints that poor 

developing countries and people are faced with. 

To tackle increasing poverty and seize economic 

opportunities, it was important to adopt 

new development frameworks such as the 

value chain. On this theme, four presentations 

were delivered, for 20 participants. 

How to create Value Chains? 

Value chains need to create linkages to high 

end markets which have the potential to return 

good benefits to producers in a manner that 

will reduce poverty. 

During the mini-durbar the following five step 

approach was presented to develop value 

chains: 

1. Selection of the value chain; 

2. Analysis of the chain 

3. Assessment of critical points and opportunities, 

4. Development of intervention strategy and 

5. Implementation and monitoring. 

Criteria, such as significance to rural and national 

economy, potential for poverty reduction 

may be applied to select value chains. 

Experiences and results 

After having done a study of the mango sub 

sector, SNV Burkina Faso positioned itself to 

support small farmers, with a significant composition 

of women. 

The results achieved so far include increase in 

production and export levels leading to higher 

generation of export revenue. Key factors 

which were mentioned as having contributed 

significantly to these achievements include the 

creation of confidence in actors and overcoming 

resistance to change. For the way forward, issues 

such as quality, conforming to international 

standards, specialization and provision of 

market information are perceived of being crucial. 

SNV Ghana presented results of their work in 

the honey value chain. Improved service delivery 

by client organizations led to enhanced production 

of honey, with increases in income generated 

from honey production of about ¢ 

2million per household. This amount is higher 

than the annual income from traditional economic 

activities. Other achievements are a 

surge in employment of two hundred modern 

beekeepers and enhanced insights into the 

business potential of the honey business. 

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ACDEP shared the experience of the Savannah 

Farmers Marketing Company (SFMC). SFMC 

deals with the farmers through contracts. Prior 

to the end of the farming season, SFMC discusses 

with big buyers about quantity, quality 

and price of products it would want to supply to 

them. After arriving at a price with the buyers, 

SFMC goes ‘upstream’ to producers to negotiate 

prices for commodities they produce. 

The experience so far shows that a marketing 

company linking farmers to customers requires 

large funding to 

operate, as well 

as support of organizations 

that 

provide capacity 

building interventions 

which would 

strengthen the 

farmer groups. 

Food for thought 

A number of issues were raised during the discussions, 

that need further thought: 

1. Is a value chain a poverty reduction tool or 

a tool for growth? 

2. Should strategic options include export promotion, 

import substitution or domestic 

market development? 

3. Should support activities deal with value 

addition or value capturing or market diversification? 

4. Where should funding be sourced from? 

Lessons learned and conclusions 

Value chain development is found to be a complex 

and expensive process. It is critical to: 

♦ Gather information for analysis 

♦ Build on an existing situation 

♦ Start small to create insights, before up 

scaling 

♦ Perceive partnership as a new form of 

competitive advantage 

♦ Belief that market focus drives scale, efficiency 

and profitability in operations. 

In general, the sharing at the learning festival 

revealed that the Value Chain Approach is 

showing promising results although there are 

differences in implementation modes with different 

organizations and countries. 

In this years Festival a total of 20 presentations and lectures were made, divided over the various sessions. A growing number of participants attend the mini-durbar sessions each year, 

reaching to over 100 in 2007. SNV is also very pleased to welcome more and more colleagues from neighbouring countries, like Burkina Faso and Benin, learning from their experiences. 

‘The Learning Festival is a practical demonstration of SNV’s drive for organisations to 

work together. It gets us out of our cocoon to look at broader issues.’ 

There has been a gradual change of the role of SNV in the organisation of the festival. The first festival was for show-casing our products, while in last years’ version we created more opportunities 

for sharing with our clients. This year we went one step further, by organising the mini-durbars jointly with clients and partners. Possibly the 2008 Learning Festival we could even 

take one more step: supporting our clients to organise the sessions themselves. So, in our own way, we are also learning. 

This Briefing is part of a series of papers developed by SNV-Ghana to inform colleagues, clients, partners and other stakeholders about SNV’s “work in progress” and to contribute to 

discussions on current issues in capacity building or thematic areas. This edition was jointly prepared by Bertram van der Wal (Advisor Health Care and Knowledge Management of 

SNV, based in Accra) and Rinus van Klinken (Portfolio Coordinator, Tamale). They could not have done this without the contributions of the following advisors and partners (in alphabetical 

order): Maxwell Agbenorhevi, Justina Anglaaere, Cynthia Awuni, Chris Bakaweri, Tijani Hamza, Amadu Mahama, Chrys Pul, Thomas Shaibu Imoro, Jean Marc Sika, Rita Tetteh-Quarshie, 

Erik van Waveren, Saani Yakubu, Joshua Yidana, Samuel A. Zan 

Contact details: 

SNV Tamale, P.O. Box TL2547, Tamale, Ghana. Tel. +233.71.23129 

Erik van Waveren, evanwaveren@snvworld.org 

Bertram van der Wal, bvanderwal@snvworld.org 

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