The Ewe (Eʋeawó “Ewe people”, Eʋedukɔ́ “Ewe nation” are a people located in the southeast corner of Ghana, east of the Volta River, in an area now described as the Volta Region, in southern Togo and western Benin. They speak the Ewe language (Eʋegbe), and are related to other speakers of Gbe languages such as the Fon and the Aja of Togo and Benin. Description and culture.The Ewe are essentially a patrilineal people; the founder of a community was the established chief, and was then usually succeeded by his paternal relatives. The Ewe is divided geographically between Ghana (Volta Region), its eastern neighbor, Togo (southern) and the western part of Benin (formerly Dahomey). This area was colonized by the Germans and was originally called Togoland. After the German defeat in World War I, the Ewe homeland was split between France and England. Most Ewes can trace male ancestors to their original villages and make their territorial divisions along those lines. Extended families are the most important units of Ewe social life. Ewe has never supported a hierarchical concentration of power within a large state.
Ewe kente clothing modern times, chiefs are generally elected by consensus and get advice from elders. There are a number of guidelines regarding the behavior of chiefs. They are expected to keep their heads covered in public, and are not to be seen drinking. The people see the chief as the communicator between the everyday world and the world of the ancestors. The chief must always keep a clear mind. Traditionally, chiefs are also not to see the face of a corpse. They may take part in the funeral, however, once the corpse is buried or inside the coffin. They are not to have any contact with the corpse.
Traditionally, chiefs sit on a black stool. A white stool is reserved for ‘honorary’ chiefs. These are auspicious individuals who have been made a ‘chief’ as recognition for their contribution to a village. Certain rituals cannot be performed by an honorary chief, and must be attended by the true chief.
The pouring of libations is an important ritual within Ewe society. Generally, only chiefs can pour libations, but sometimes, at a durbar, a linguist performs the role. Libations are poured three times, in honor of ancestors, life, and the libation’s offered himself. The Ewe like neighboring Akan tribes wears Kenta as their traditional cloth. The style of wearing Kenta is similar to Akans like the Ashantis and Akyem. The Ewe has a long history of weaving ‘Kete’ cloth, especially in Kpetoe (a town in the Volta region of Ghana). In the Ashanti wars against the Ewe, Ewe
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Demographic characteristics
The region’s population in 2000 was 1,635,421. This implies, an increase of 35.0 per cent over the 1984 count 1,211,907, giving an annual growth rate of 1.9 per cent. The intercensal growth rate shows little change from 2.0 per cent in 1970, 1.8 per cent in 1984 and 1.9 per cent in 2000. The population density of the region increased from 59 persons per square kilometre in 1984 to 79.5 persons in 2000.
The age structure of the population indicates that all the districts of the region have a young population, typical of most developing countries. The regional distribution of the population, aged 0-14 years, is 41.1 per cent compared to 44.2 per cent in 1984. Nkwanta (47.3%) and Krachi (46.4%) have the highest proportion of the population, aged 0-14 years. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for the region (3.5) is lower than the national rate of 4.0. Nkwanta District recorded the highest TFR (4.4), while Keta recorded the lowest (2.6).
As is the case with a young population, the dependency ratio is relatively high for all the districts. The regional overall dependency ratio is 92 dependants to 100 working people. The sex ratio is lower than 90.0 in five districts; it is between 90.0 and 100.0 in four other districts. In the Jasikan, Kadjebi and Krachi, Districts, the sex ratios are higher than 100.0. The proportion of the population living in urban localities (population of 5,000 or more) in the region has increased from 20.5 per cent in 1984 to 27.0 per cent in 2000, with the highest proportion of the population living in urban areas the in Keta (53.0%). There are 34 urban localities in the region. Keta town (Keta) has been identified as a “dying” town which has declined at the rate of 1.9 per cent per annum over the past 30 years.
The decline in the population of Keta is due mainly to the sea erosion which caused population movements out of the town and also affected commercial and other activities. Kadjebi, Anyako and Kpedze are other urban localities which had virtually no growth during that period. Of all the urban localities, Juapong, Keta, Krachi, Banda and Worawora are the only localities where males outnumber females. For the region as a whole, the usual resident population of 1,668,568 is 2.0 per cent higher than the de facto count of 1,635,421. Except for the Ho, Hohoe and the Nkwanta, Districts, the number of people who usually reside in the districts, is more than those present on Census Night.
Social characteristics
Of all heads of households, 61.0 per cent are males, and 39.0 per cent females. A higher percentage of females (2.3 %) than males (0.6 %) are temporary household heads. Most femaleheaded households are either single person households or single parent households. Data on marital status indicate that 59.9 per cent of females and 53.6 per cent of males are currently married or are in a consensual union. In all, 13.2 per cent of persons, aged 15 years and older, were once married but are now separated, divorced or widowed. The proportion of never married males (38.3 %) is higher than that of the never married females (22.2 %).
Females in the region, who have ever been, but are no longer, married, are confronted with the many burdens and consequences of a break (voluntary or involuntary) in their marital union. Apart from losing the benefits of mutual support and companionship of a stable marital relation, they have to develop survival strategies to cope with a variety of burdens they face. At present, there are, regrettably, no effective mitigating programme packages for these burdens which, in many cases, weigh very heavily on these separated, divorced or widowed women. Marriage itself presents challenges, but being no more in a marital union, and most often being a single parent and a household head, present greater challenges for females in the region.
The predominant ethnic group in the region, the Ewe, constitutes 68.5 per cent of the total population, followed by the Guan (9.2 %), the Akan (8.5 %) and the Gurma (6.2). This pattern of distribution runs through nine of the 12 districts. In the Nkwanta District, the Gurma (44.4 %) are the predominant group while in the Jasikan and Krachi Districts, the Guan are in the majority. The variation in the ethnic group distribution and composition in the region has important socio-cultural implications that need to be taken account in both policy formulation and implementation. About 96.0 per cent of residents in the region are Ghanaians, including 2.5 per cent naturalized Ghanaians. Of the 93.3 per cent Ghanaians by birth, 52.1 per cent are males and 47.9 per cent females. The non-Ghanaian population is very high in the Kadjebi District (16.9%). On the other hand, non Ghanaians constitute between 5.0 and 6.5 per cent of the population in four of the northern districts, Hohoe (6.3%), Jasikan (6.2%), Krachi (5.6%) and Nkwanta (5.4%). They account for between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent in three other districts and less than 2.0 per cent in four districts, Kpandu, Akatsi, South Tongu and Keta.
Christians constitute 67.2 per cent of the main religious groups in the region; adherents of Traditional religion account for 21.8 per cent and Moslems, 5.0 per cent. Those who do not practise any religion constitute 5.3 per cent while all other smaller religious groups make up 0.7 per cent. The distribution pattern of religious affiliation in the districts is about the same as the distribution in the region, except for the Kadjebi, Jasikan and Hohoe, Districts where the percentage of Moslems is higher than that of adherents of Traditional religion. The adult literacy rate in the region is 58.3per cent, made up of 68.7 per cent of males and 49.1 per cent of females. The literacy rates in the Nkwanta and Krachi Districts are low. Pre-schools, which provide child-care and learning services to children below six years of age, are becoming important in all the districts.
There is a sharp drop of the school population from primary (59.0%) to JSS (23.2%) at the regional level and higher in most districts. This may be due to the fact that some children drop out of school before entering JSS. The other reason may be that there are few new infrastructures for JSS in the districts. Efforts should be geared towards aggressively building more JSSs to uptake pupils from the primary schools. The free Compulsory Universal Basic Education programme (fCUBE) is probably beginning to yield results leading to higher primary school enrolment.
The large difference between JSS and SSS enrolment in the districts may be due to the high drop out rate, as a result of examination failure, inability to pay for SSS education, or some enrolling in Vocational, Technical or Commercial Schools. An encouraging proportion of children, especially females, are in the primary schools in the region. This raises the important issue of the extent to which a significant proportion of those now at primary schools can be sustained and retained in the educational system at higher levels. The next issue is that of the infrastructural facilities at the next higher levels, necessary to accommodate and effectively absorb substantially higher proportions of students seeking admission to the higher levels.
Children and wards in SSS, become important factors in children’s education at SSS level and beyond. It is therefore an important and necessary policy and programme concern, for the region’s development, to expand educational institutions and empower and encourage parents and guardians to send, and maintain their children and wards, in all levels in the educational system, especially SSS and beyond.
Current Enrolment in vocational/technical/commercial education remains regrettably very low for both males (2.4%) and females (1.7%) in the region. Since such schools require much investment in equipment and other infrastructure, they need not be multiplied in each district. It must however be ensured that the facilities exist in the region and are sufficiently well equipped to train the right calibre of students. In addition to this, lucrative job openings in the region must be assured to absorb, those who complete their training in these Vocational, Technical and Commercial Institutions and the Polytechnics after training. Investment in education, especially in SSS education and beyond, which is indispensable for the human resource development of the region, should therefore be a major focus of regional and district development programme planning and implementation.
Only a small proportion of households (1.3%) dispose of liquid waste through the sewerage system in the region; this proportion is less than 1.0 per cent in the districts except Ho (3.8%) and North Tongu (2.2%). At least 80.0 per cent of households in every district dispose of liquid waste on the compound of houses and on the streets outside.
In sum, the Nkwanta and Krachi Districts are the most deprived districts in the region, outside of Akatsi in the south. These two districts have good agricultural land but the road network linking them to the rest of the region is in a deplorable condition. It is important for stakeholders in the region to seriously work towards the rebuilding of the major trunk roads to link the two districts to the northern part and the rest of the districts to the south, to avoid food produced in these districts from going waste. It is also important to revisit the irrigation projects in the Krachi District, which were planned alongside the creation of the Volta Dam, some years ago. In tune with the benefits of the creation of the Volta Dam, is the development of a modern port at Torkor, in the Kpandu District. This, as in the case of the irrigation projects, has not been realized and it is time to reconsider this.
It would enhance good health practice if stakeholders can create an awareness that will make communities in the region realize the need to construct toilet facilities (even if pit latrines) so as to reduce the use of the bush and the seashore, as toilet facilities. Economic characteristics
About 72.4 per cent of the population, 15 years and older, are economically active, with a slightly higher proportion of males (73.1%) than of females (71.8%). The computed general activity rate for males (79.8%) in 2000 has not increased much over the 1984 figure (79.7%). That of the females decreased by 8.3 per cent from 85.3 per cent in 1984 to 77.0 per cent in 2000. For all the 15 districts, all three computed activity rates, the crude, the general and the refined activity rates show that the Krachi has a very high participation rate ahead of Nkwanta and Akatsi.
Of the economically active population, 92.5 per cent are employed in various industries, with 7.5 per cent unemployed. The rate of unemployment is highest in Kpandu (11.1%), followed by Jasikan (10.4%) and Ho (10.5%). The rest of the districts have a single digit unemployment rate ranging from 3.4 per cent for Nkwanta, to 9.7 per cent for Hohoe. The rate of unemployment is higher among females than males in seven of the 15 districts. Students constitute (31.1%) of the non-economically active population in the region.
Workers in the agricultural and related occupations are in the majority in all the districts. Males predominate in the following four occupational categories: Professional/Technical and related workers, Administrative/Managerial, Clerical and related workers and “Others”. Females constitute the majority in three occupational categories, namely, Services, Sales and Production/Transport Operators and labourers. Agriculture/Hunting/Forestry remains the largest industry in the region and in the districts, except Keta and Krachi, districts where Fishing is the main and the second industry respectively. Additionally, males outnumber females in the Construction and the Transport/Storage and Communication industries while females predominate in the Wholesale/Retail and the Hotels/Restaurants industries.
Majority of the people in the region are self-employed. Almost every four out of five working people are self- employed. In the districts, on the average, 13.6 per cent of the males and 6.1 per cent of the females, are employees (i.e. employed by other people or establishments). The private informal sector engages eight out of every 10 working people, while the private sector, as a whole, employs nine out of every 10 people in every district.
Policies aimed at improving the private sector and creating an enabling environment in the region should therefore aim at capacitating small scale enterprises to expand their base and be able to absorb extra labour. The self-employed without employees in the private informal sector, many of whom are not even properly registered, also raise problems of mobilisation for such social welfare issues as social security and health insurance, which are becoming important concerns for Government. Appropriate policies to integrate this sector into the various social sector schemes will therefore need to be evolved since such integration can even have an indirect positive effect on the growth and expansion of private sector enterprises.
Housing and community facilities
There are 376,204 dwelling units in 264,451 houses across the region, on March 26, 2000, representing an increase of 52.8 per cent in the housing stock since March 1984. In all, there are 345,821 households in the region, which translates into a ratio of 1.3 households per house, the lowest in the country.
Mud/mud and bricks/earth are the main materials used in constructing walls of dwelling units, followed by cement block/concrete, leaf/thatch, wood and burnt brick, in that order. Corrugated metal sheets are the main roofing materials in nine of the 12 districts. In the Krachi, Nkwanta and Akatsi, Districts, there are more thatch/palm leaf roofed houses than in any other district. In the southern part of the region, especially in the Keta District, 30.6 per cent of houses are roofed with asbestos sheets. At least about a third of dwelling units in every district have the floor constructed with cement.
In six of the 15 districts, over a third of the households have pipe-borne water as the main source of drinking water. The river/stream is the main source of drinking water for at least a third of households in the districts, except Keta, Ketu and Akatsi. In the Keta, and Ketu Districts, the well is the main source of drinking water for majority of the households and in the Akatsi District; in particular, a little over a third of the population relies on other sources of water supply such as dams, springs and rainfall. This observation is supported by the fact that in the Ketu, Akatsi and southern Ho, Districts in particular, there are deliberate attempts at harvesting rainwater for household use.
The kerosene lamp is the main source of lighting in many households in every district in the region. Gas lamps are not common in any of the districts while solar energy, as a source of lighting, is not used in eight of the 12 districts.
At least 90.0 per cent of households in every district in the region use wood and charcoal as fuel for cooking. Apart from the Ho (5.0%), Keta (2.8%), Hohoe (2.2%) and Kpandu (2.0%), Districts, less than 2.0 per cent of households, in all other districts, use gas for cooking. About a quarter of the households in the region do not have any toilet facility. The situation is more serious in the Nkwanta and Keta Districts. Less than 8.0 per cent of households in all the districts of the region use the water closet;