AMAATI COMPANY LIMITED (ACL)

Despite Ghana’s high economic growth in recent years, high poverty levels persist, with 44-69% of the population living under the poverty line. In the three northern regions with vast agricultural land, 90% of families rely on agricultural livelihoods. Lack of diversification from agricultural economic activity and severely limited food production has resulted in chronic poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition, with 33-40% of children under 5 suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Due to climate change, erratic rainfall patterns further affect food production in the northern regions where there is only one rainy season, threatening employment among youth and women. Unemployment in northern Ghana (14.2%) is driven by the increasing concentration of climate-dependent cereals like maize, sorghum, and millet threatened by rainfall variability and land degradation due to intense fertilizer application. This exacerbates the exodus of women and youths to cities where they may be exploited for labor and worsens the precarity and malnutrition among the remaining rural families.