Regional reorganisation in Ghana: Implication for travel distance and access to critical public services

In 2018, the government of Ghana set out to reorganise some administrative regions to ensure balanced development across the country. The reorganisation was informed by spatial extent and concerns about the limited access to government institutions or services, measured by the travel distances betwe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:GeoJournal 2023-06, Vol.88 (3), p.3039-3058
Main Authors: Laari, Prosper Basommi, Sagoe, Gideon, Fuseini, Moses Naiim, Abdulai, Ibrahim Abu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
Averages
descriptive statistics
Distance
Environmental Management
Geographic information systems
Geography
Ghana
Government
Human Geography
Human settlement
Human settlements
humans
Information systems
Motivation
Municipalities
Public services
Regions
Reorganization
Social Sciences
Spatial analysis
spatial data
Statistical analysis
Statistical methods
Statistics
Sustainable development
t-test
transportation
Transportation networks
Travel
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Summary:In 2018, the government of Ghana set out to reorganise some administrative regions to ensure balanced development across the country. The reorganisation was informed by spatial extent and concerns about the limited access to government institutions or services, measured by the travel distances between communities or towns and the capital of a region. However, studies have failed to assess the changes in the spatial extent and the travel distances from human settlements to the regional capitals in the newly created regions as well as the distribution of public services. As such, the motivation for this study. The data were gathered using an interview guide and from the Mapcruzin open-source database whereas the analysis was done using ArcMap, Geographical Information Systems, descriptive statistics, paired sample t -tests, and thematic analysis. The results indicate that the reorganisation significantly decreased the average travel distances in all the regions of interest, and the same was observed at the district and municipality levels, which suggests a general improvement in accessibility to services and institutions. However, the average travel distance rose for a few affected districts and municipalities. To achieve balanced development, the government must improve the transportation network to facilitate better access to public services.
ISSN:1572-9893
0343-2521
1572-9893
DOI:10.1007/s10708-022-10795-1