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Empowering the girl child has long been the goal of many countries especially countries hard hit by gender disparity in education. Ghana, just like other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has implemented policies to help address gender disparity in education. This study sought to assess factors that limit female enrolment and performance despite policies and programmes put in place to solve gender disparity in education. Using a quantitative research approach, questionnaires were administered to 1,070 students and 170 teachers. Secondary data on enrolment and performance were also acquired from the Kassena-Nankana East Municipal office of the Ghana Education Service. The study revealed that though enrolment in senior high schools increased for both boys and girls from 2010/2011 to 2019/2020 academic years, girls still lagged behind boys in enrolment and performed inversely in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination. Poor parental control, peer pressure, teenage pregnancy, poverty, early marriage and betrothal, and gender roles, still have significant effects on female enrolment. Access to money for upkeep affects the concentration of girls in school while policies and programmes put in place to help address gender disparity, are riddled with limitations. The way forward is to ensure that policies meet their goals as well as encouraging girls to take education serious through initiatives such as rewarding brilliant students and enhancing mentorship in schools. Keywords: Girl child, Enrolment, Performance, Senior high school, Challenges.

Water is precious and vulnerable simultaneously in the face of climate change impacts. Farmers respond differently to climate change impacts depending on available resources. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of access to water on smallholder farmers’ coping strategies to climate change impacts in the semi-arid zone (Aw climate). Using a mixed method approach, 6 focus group discussions, 10 key informant interviews and 148 questionnaires were administered to farmers. Quantitative data were analysed and presented using descriptive statistics whilst qualitative data were transcribed and discussed alongside. The study found that in coping with local climate change, farmers’ incomes are dependent on availability of water to supplement rainfall. Therefore, communities closer to the waters of the Tono irrigation dam have greater advantage over other communities that rely on waters from dugouts and wells. Also, income gained from farming is complemented with supplementary incomes from activities such as petty trading, carpentry and sale of farmers’ labour on other farms. Availability of water, particularly, during the dry season is a determinant factor of success in terms of good farm produce, income and better coping with local climate change impacts. To help these water-stressed farmers, the provision of sustainable sources of water is inevitable.  The government and smallholders need to work together to solve the problem.