Primary and Secondary Effects of COVID-19 on Women and Children in Ghana
The wellbeing of children in Ghana in the COVID-19 pandemic
Highlights
This report is the first of a series of bulletins on children’s wellbeing in Ghana amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to assess the effects of the pandemic on children in Ghana, focusing on vulnerable and poor ones as well as gender disparities.
The analysis uses a longitudinal national representative phone survey with 3,265 households and 2,063 caretakers of children selected based on the sampling framework of the Ghana Living Standard Survey VII and administered by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS). The data was collected through phone interviews in June 2020. The sample size consisted of 5,667 children aged 0-17 years (51.1% females) living in 2,186 respondent households representing all 16 regions, rural and urban areas, in Ghana. Interviews were conducted in local languages.
This report reveals the significant negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children in Ghana in the short-term with respect to access to essential services, financial distress, food insecurity, mental health, increased risk of exposure to violence and child labour and the effects of school closures on children’s learning. These findings require the attention of policymakers to develop and provide a child responsive policy framework and programmatic interventions to respond to these negative impacts.
