Poverty widespread in Ghana’

Despite the economic growth being touted by President John Mahama on his ‘Accounting to the People’ tour in recent times, a new survey has stated that inequality has increased in the country and poverty remains prevalent in many areas.

Andy McKay, Professor of Development Economics at the University of Sussex, UK, who made a presentation at a public lecture Friday in Accra on the theme:

“Inequality in Ghana: Is Ghana’s Development Leaving Many People Behind?” said “rural poverty is now almost four times as high as urban poverty compared to twice as high in the 1990s.”

The lecture was jointly hosted by Susan Ngongi, UNICEF Representative and Dr Philomena Nyarko, Government Statistician.

Worst hit regions

Prof McKay said at the regional level, the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions continue to have the highest poverty rates.

He noted that substantial progress had been achieved since 2006 in the Upper East region because poverty has dropped from 72.9 percent in 2006 to 44.4 percent in 2013.

Prof stressed that “of great concern is Northern region which saw its high level of poverty fall only marginally from 55.7 percent to 50.4 percent.”

“Since the 1990s overall, the Northern region has seen the smallest progress in poverty reduction.

“This is a major issue for the country given that the Northern region now makes up the highest number of poor people of any of Ghana’s 10 regions (1.3 million).”

Depth of poverty

The same three northern regions continue to have the highest levels of poverty depth, and Upper West and Upper East also made important progress in reducing poverty depth since 2006 although the levels remain high.

Surprisingly, four regions – Western, Central, Volta and Ashanti – saw their poverty depth rise slightly since 2006, which means that not enough efforts are being made to improve the lives of the poor in those regions.”

Urban poverty

He said households in urban Ghana continued to have a much lower average rate of poverty than those in rural areas (10.6 percent versus 37.9 percent), adding that urban poverty had dropped in recent years much faster than rural poverty and as a result the gap between urban and rural areas had doubled.

Child poverty

Prof McKay said there were still 3.5 million children living in poverty in Ghana currently, adding that that accounted for 28.3 percent of all children.

“We estimate that in Ghana a child is almost 40 percent more likely to live in poverty than an adult.”

Inequality

He stated that inequality has been on the rise in Ghana since 1992.

The Upper West region has the highest level of inequality in the country and the largest increase in inequality since the 1990s.

The lowest level of inequality is found in Greater Accra region.

“This means that some districts, communities or groups of people in certain regions, especially in the North, are being left out and are still missing out on recent economic growth.

“We confirm that the poor’s growth rate has been lower overall than for wealthier groups who have benefitted more which has added to inequality.”

Consumption

From the consumption perspective, he said the gap between the poorest 10 percent and the richest 10 percent of the population had been on the rise and had also increased since 2006.

Growth

“We determine that Ghana has not achieved inclusive growth (growth that has benefitted the poor disproportionately more than the wealthy) as the wealthiest have benefitted most.

“We find that while growth has driven impressive poverty reduction, rising inequality has indeed reduced poverty reduction.”