Set baseline poverty indicators - Govt urged

Apam, July 8, GNA - The Gomoa District Budget Analyst, Mr Eric Akobeng, has suggested to the government to set baseline poverty indicators for the districts.

Mr Akobeng said the indicators would make assessment of the level of poverty in the districts easy.

The baseline indicators would make the government to know the impact of poverty reduction interventions in the districts. Assessing the poverty level through guesswork was not "good enough".

Mr Akobeng made the suggestion in an interview with GNA at a workshop on the Community-based Rural Development project, at Apam. CBRDP is a poverty reduction project, which has succeeded the village infrastructure project, which came to an end in the early part of this year.

Mr Akobeng also appealed to the District Assembly to review their development plans periodically to know their impact on the lives of the people.

The appraisal would also enable the Assemblies to know whether they were on track or not.

The Budget Analyst commended CBRDP for making capacity building a component of the project and noted that many of the poverty reduction programmes had not made any meaningful impact because the beneficiaries could not manage them properly. He appealed to rural communities to help in making the programme a success.