A focus on Ghana's sustainable development: Examining the interplay of income inequality and energy poverty.

This study investigates how income inequality influences energy poverty alleviation in Ghana as it seeks to achieve a sustainable economy. Employing the Granger causality test on a dataset from 1990 to 2021, the results show that both Gini post-tax and post-transfer (Income inequality-ll1) and Gini pre-tax and pre-transfer (Income inequality-ll2) Granger-cause access to electricity and rural area access to electricity. Urban area access to electricity Granger-causes Gini post-tax and post-transfer. Similarly, an FMOLS test was carried out to introduce some controlling variables and results showed that GDP, trade liberation, urbanization, population growth, and financial development increase income inequality and access to clean fuels and technology, as well as access to urban energy, have a substantial impact on economic disparity. In addition, GDP, financial development, energy intensity, industrialization, trade liberalization, urbanization, population rise, and FDI all have varying implications on energy poverty. These results imply the need to include energy poverty reduction measures within income inequality reduction policies to enhance not just access to today's cutting-edge energy but also affordability to the minimal income receivers. Other reforms and levies on electricity consumption options in renewable energy support can contribute to addressing income inequality and energy poverty issues in Ghana.

Achieving carbon neutrality in West Africa: The impact of financial development and good governance.

Achieving a net zero carbon has been one of the main agendas for all state and non-state actors. The political system of developing countries sometimes makes both internal and external actors question their efforts toward the agenda. Therefore, this study contributes to previous literature in analyzing the empirical effect of financial development and governance quality on carbon emissions. The study covers sixteen West African countries with data from 1996 to 2021. The study employs the Generalized Method of Moments for the analysis. Financial development in all the models contributes to carbon emissions. However, the effect of governance quality indicators varies depending on the model and the indicator(s) used. Nevertheless, economic governance and political governance in most models contribute to environmental pollution, but institutional governance helps promote environmental quality. Renewable energy and economic growth promote environmental quality through carbon mitigation. However, trade openness promotes environmental pollution by encouraging the release of carbon emissions. Finally, relevant policy implications are proposed based on the empirical findings of the study.

Perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 among healthcare workers in Ghana: A cross-sectional study.

Background and Aims: The COVID-19 pandemic has stretched many healthcare systems, and it is having detrimental impacts on healthcare workers at the forefront, fighting to save lives. This study sought to assess the relationship between job factors and the perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 at the workplace among healthcare workers and how the relationships are augmented when sociodemographic characteristics are taken into consideration in a limited resource setting (Ghana). Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 455 respondents was conducted. Results: Overall, 5.93% of the respondents perceived low risk of contracting COVID-19 while 69.45% and 24.62% perceived medium and high risks of contracting COVID-19 at the workplace, respectively. The odds of a high perceived risk versus the combined medium and low perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 at the workplace was 0.461 times lower for healthcare workers who rated their workplace safety systems as good and 0.515 and 0.170 times lower for healthcare workers who indicated occasional and frequent work environment situational assessment (situational awareness), respectively. The odds of high perceived risk were 2.239 times higher for workers who are always emotionally fatigued and 1.829 times higher for healthcare workers who frequently contribute personally to workplace decision-making. The perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 at the workplace was also 1.780 times higher for healthcare workers with tertiary education. Conclusion: In terms of health and safety at work, this study recommends that there should be an improvement in implementing safety protocols at health facilities to increase the confidence of healthcare workers. Furthermore, social and psychological support and work environment situational assessment, which can reduce stress and anxiety levels among the healthcare workers, should be implemented if contributing factors such as working outside their area of expertise or job scope cannot be eliminated.