This conceptual and framework paper theorises the structural barriers limiting youth climate agency in Ghanaian secondary and tertiary schools and advances the Youth-Led Climate Action Lab (YCAL) as a five-phase, design-thinking-grounded intervention model, drawing on Ghanaian educational research, West African climate policy literature and four bodies of theory: social cognitive theory, transformative learning, postcolonial environmental education and Critical Emotional Awareness pedagogy. We argue that the persistent gap between students’ climate awareness and their capacity to act is not a knowledge deficit but a structural product of educational systems that deny young people mastery experiences, civic channels for voice and the emotional scaffolding needed to engage climate anxiety productively. We present a comprehensive implementation framework adaptable across diverse Ghanaian and African school contexts, engaging directly with the critiques most threatening to the framework’s coherence: the depoliticising tendencies of design thinking, the power asymmetry of cross-level student partnerships and the structural inadequacy of micro-actions against systemic climate failure. We are honest about which of these are resolved and which remain open empirical and political questions. A directed research agenda specifies the theoretical questions that empirical work must answer.

This article explains why Ghana’s weak, building-focused property rating regime has persisted despite fiscal arguments for bringing land value more directly into local revenue systems. It argues that the problem lies not only in poor records, valuation constraints, weak enforcement, and low compliance but also in the relationship between the tax authority and the land authority. Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies have formal authority to raise property rates, yet the land relations needed to support land-based taxation, including information, valuation evidence, liability, legitimacy, and revenue expectations, remain partly shaped by customary authority. The article develops the concept of tax authority/land authority divergence to explain how land-based property tax reform can be constrained when the authority to tax and the authority to define, allocate, and legitimate land rights do not fully coincide. Drawing on documentary analysis, historical evidence, and 32 qualitative interviews, it shows how Ghana’s building-focused regime can remain fiscally weak but institutionally durable: it gives local governments a formal property tax instrument while leaving land value largely outside the recurrent local tax base.

Witchcraft accusations in Northern Ghana have led to the banishment of hundreds of older women to isolated camps, resulting in profound social exclusion and mental distress. While previous studies have explored their lived experiences, limited attention has been given to strategies that enable safe return and psychosocial recovery. To develop an evidence-informed, culturally grounded framework for mental-health promotion and sustainable reintegration of women previously accused of witchcraft in Northern Ghana. This conceptual paper draws on evidence from a mixed-methods doctoral programme comprising qualitative interpretive interviews, stakeholder discussions, and a cross-sectional survey of 268 camp residents in northern Ghana, supplemented by documentary and policy analysis. Framework development was guided by three complementary lenses – the socio-ecological model, Kleinman’s explanatory model, and the social determinants of health – used to structure a Framework Method synthesis that informed the Culturally Grounded Reintegration Framework (CGRF). Reintegration is constrained by persistent stigma, precarious livelihoods, weak institutional protections, and limited access to mental health and social welfare services. Simultaneously, culturally authoritative mechanisms including mediated reconciliation by traditional and faith leaders, collective labour practices, and storytelling, provide meaningful pathways for restoring dignity, belonging, and psychological wellbeing. The CGRF integrates four mutually reinforcing components: (1) culturally adapted psychosocial support; (2) family and spiritual reconciliation; (3) community inclusion and livelihood security; and (4) legal and institutional safeguards. Reintegration is a therapeutic, social justice, and culturally mediated process rather than physical relocation alone. The CGRF offers a locally grounded, theoretically informed model aligned with WHO mhGAP principles and the Sustainable Development Goals, with potential relevance (with adaptation) for other settings facing spiritually mediated stigma, ageism, and gendered exclusion.

This qualitative study explores the contraceptive use behaviours among women with disabilities in low-resource settings in Ghana, a group whose reproductive health needs are often overlooked in mainstream family planning programmes. Sixteen women with visual, physical, and hearing impairments in Apam, Central Region, were purposively selected to participate in semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in their preferred languages, including Ghanaian Sign Language. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify key patterns in the data, revealing four main themes: (1) pathways for acquiring contraceptive knowledge, which included institutional outreach, maternal health visits, and informal peer networks; (2) determinants of non-utilisation, such as fear of side effects, religious stigma, and the desire to have children for future caregiving support; (3) drivers of modern contraceptive uptake, including the pursuit of educational and vocational goals, partner support, and the desire to prevent obstetric trauma; and (4) structural and systemic health inequalities, characterised by communication barriers, inaccessible physical infrastructure, and inconsistent provider attitudes. The findings advance scientific knowledge by moving beyond a simple narrative of unmet need to illustrate how women with disabilities exercise reproductive agency within a complex landscape of intersecting personal, social, and structural constraints. The novel findings highlight the dual role of informal networks in disseminating both accurate information and persistent myths, as well as the nuanced ways in which fertility is viewed as a long-term survival strategy in the absence of robust social support. These insights inform policy by underscoring the urgent need for disability-inclusive family planning services. This requires a multi-pronged approach that includes accessible communication through sign language interpretation, disability-sensitivity training for healthcare workers, retrofitting health facilities to improve physical access, and linking contraceptive services with broader social protection programmes to address the root causes of non-use.

Blockchain is frequently proposed as a solution to tenure insecurity, administrative inefficiencies, and corruption, where conventional land reforms have fallen short. However, evidence of its institutional effectiveness remains limited. Drawing on Williamsonian transaction cost economics and an analytical autoethnographic research design, we undertake a comparative analysis of blockchain’s ability to curb opportunism and safeguard the interests of land-transacting parties relative to Ghana’s customary and statutory land-governance structures. Our findings show that while blockchain performs well at some ex ante safeguards, it offers no clear advantage over existing governance structures at the ex post stage. Of the seven identified forms of post-transaction opportunism that buyers often face, blockchain was superior only in minimising hold-up risks. We conclude with implications for policymakers and technologists considering blockchain adoption.

While the abolition of secondary school fees has expanded educational access across low-income countries, empirical research has focused predominantly on student outcomes and institutional or elite perspectives, overlooking how ordinary citizens perceive such reforms or the factors shaping those perceptions. This gap is especially salient in Ghana, where the Free SHS policy, arguably the most comprehensive in Sub-Saharan Africa, is both nationally lauded and politically contested. Drawing on policy feedback theory and deservingness heuristics, this article explores how Ghanaians interpret the policy’s goals, trade-offs, and implementation using a nationally representative sample of 1915 respondents. Latent Class Analysis reveals five classes, from Universal Access Champions down to Ambivalent Observers. A follow-up multinomial logistic regression shows that partisanship, education, civic engagement, and economic outlook significantly predict class membership. These findings highlight that sustaining support for large-scale reforms requires not just expanded access, but also public trust in their fairness and responsiveness.