Overview

The Talensi District is one of the districts, carved out of the Nabdam district from the then Talensi-Nabdam-District Assembly in 2012. Established by Local Government (Talensi District Assembly) (Establishment instrument .2012), (L.I.2110; It is located in the Upper East Region and has its capital at Tongo. It is bordered to the North by the Bolgatanga Municipal, South by the West and East Mamprusi Districts (both in the Northern Region), Kassena-Nankana District to the West and the Bawku west and Nabdam District to the East. The district lies between latitude 10’ 15” and 10’ 60” north of the equator and longitude 0’ 31” and 1’ 0.5” and west of the Greenwich meridian. It has a total land area of about 838.4 km2. This indicates that the district is large and will require many socio-economic infrastructures in terms of the geographical spread of the district. The large nature of the district would make it difficult to ensure fair distribution of facilities and almost impossible for many people to have easy access to services provided. There is the need to provide more socio-economic facilities to ensure equitable distribution of service delivery.

Occupation

In terms of employment, the informal sector dominates; while the formal sector comprise of staff working in governmental departments either as established staff or casuals workers. Jobs in the informal sector include farming, which is estimated to engage about 90.7% of the labour force. Others are engaged in mining, artisanal stone crashing and heaping, agro-processing, charcoal burning, firewood harvesting, petty trading and irrigation as source of income.

Apart from agro-processing activities where women dominate, male and female are involved in the rest of the income generating activities which include firewood harvesting, charcoal production, gold mining, trading, stone crashing and heaping. Children are also involved in most of these activities, notably mining, artisanal stone crashing and irrigation farming.

Generally, the female group that form majority of the population are the most affected in the provision of social services (water and sanitation facilities, schools and health facilities).This is because it is the women who are illiterate in character do participate in most of the communal activities in the communities when the need arise.

The population has a low literacy level, majority of whom are women. It is estimated that about 58% of the population are illiterates, while 42% literate, with most of the literate group not resident in the district. Following this, the knowledge of developmental issues in the district is inadequate. The female population forms a majority of the illiterate population in the district.

Housing

Generally majority of houses in the district are organized in compound form that contain many households. They are mainly traditional in nature, however there are some sandcrete buildings.

Administrative Division

To increase geographical access and to ensure effective health service delivery and administration, the district has been divided into eight administrative sub-districts namely; Datoku, Duusi/Gbane, Gorogo/Tengzuk, Pwalugu, Shia, Namolgo/Kpatia, Tongo, Tolla/Nungu and Winkogo Sub-districts.

Demographic Characteristics

The population of the District for the year from the Ghana Statistical Service stands at 97,417 for 2024. The estimated number of children under one year and children under five years were pegged at 4% and 20% respectively. The expected pregnancies and expected deliveries also stands at 4%as well. Women Reproductive Age constitutes 24% of the estimated total population. All the population indicators were based on the total populations. Below is a summary of the population indicators.

Health Facilities

The number of health facilities in the district are however not sufficient; and those available are poorly equipped. The service providers comprise of the public and current private sectors which include (NGOs) and traditional practitioners. The type of Health facility, administrative subdistricts, location and the population served for 2023 is provided on the table below:

The District is served by 48 health facilities which comprises of 1 District Hospital, 9 health Centers (2 private), 3 clinics (2 for CHAG and 1 current private) and 35 CHPS compounds. More CHPS zones have to be made functional to increase health services delivery.