Contributing to summer school of cluster of research excellence in Ghana
The 2025 summer school of the Cluster of Research Excellence in Inequalities, Poverty, and Deprivation (CoRE IPD) was hosted this year by the Institute for Statistical and Socio-Economical Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, Legon in July.
ISSER convenes ACEIR’s Ghana research node under the leadership of Prof. Robert D. Osei and facilitates the university’s partnership in this cluster of research excellence.
The three universities that host ACEIR’s nodes in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa are the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) partners in the CoRE IPD alongside three universities from The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities (The Guild).
The summer school consisted of three elective courses this year: the first week’s course dealt with the roots of poverty, inequality and deprivation in Africa by exploring the historical, political, and socio-economic dimensions of inequality. The ACEIR team’s contributions to the five-day course included modules on:
- the basics of poverty analysis; and data and poverty measurement – Dr Muna Shifa, University of Cape Town;
- poverty measurement and determinants – Prof. Germano Mwabu, University of Nairobi;
- the application of Ghana’s panel data to measure structural change and poverty reduction – Prof. Osei;
- gender inequality – Prof. Abena Oduro, University of Ghana;
- growth, poverty, social mobility, and inequality in Africa – Prof. Murray Leibbrandt, University of Cape Town; and
- an introduction to panel data – Prof. Nicola Branson and Dr. Emma Whitelaw, University of Cape Town.
The second week of the school offered a practical, hands-on course on rigorous impact evaluations led by CoRE IPD researchers from the University of Groningen; and a practical training course for analysing panel survey data from Ghana and other African countries by ACEIR researchers at the University of Cape Town.