Learn from Ghana's poverty alleviation success story - World Bank
The World Bank Country Co-ordinator for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Mr Sergiy Kulyk, has recommended Ghana as a success story to the world in terms of poverty alleviation.
Advertisement
"To the bank, Ghana is a middle income country" as it was the first in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) One of reducing poverty and hunger ahead of the deadline of 2015.
Mr Kulyk made the recommendation at the opening of a reverse mission between the World Bank and Ghana under Ghana's Social Protection programme at the Bank's office in Washington DC with a live from the World Bank office in Accra.
The reverse mission, which is the first in the history of the World Bank Group's relations with Ghana, was on the theme "Safety nets in Ghana- Innovation and successes", saw some World Bank officials being briefed on the achievements and challenges of Ghana's social protection programmes with representatives from Ghana who included the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Alhaji Collins Da«da,a Deputy Minister of Finance, Mrs Mona Quartey, the Chief Director, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mr Kwasi Armo-Himbsons among other officials.
After commending Ghana, Mr Kulyk said the challenge in the country was how to translate its achievements which is on statistics to the people, saying the situation on the ground was "far from mission accomplished".
He said although the country had halved poverty, nine years down the line, about six million people still live in poverty and 2.2 million others were living in extreme poverty.
He said the bank was ready to help the country to work at reversing the current situation on the ground.
World Bank support
According to the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 2000), the poverty profile of Ghana indicated that an estimated 40 per cent of Ghanaians are poor.
Other Trending Stories
Furthermore, an additional 14.7 per cent of the population is afflicted by "extreme poverty" and thus unable to cater for basic human needs including their nutritional requirements and suffer from poverty across generations.
The World Bank is presently supporting Social Protection interventions in Ghana through an $88.6 million Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP).
An additional financing of $50 million for ongoing project activities has been approved by the bank, bringing the total contribution to $138.6 million.
Social protection In Ghana
Social Protection consists a set of formal and informal mechanisms directed towards the provision of social assistance and capacity enhancement to the vulnerable and excluded in society.
In Ghana, there are 44 social intervention programmes which cover extremely poor individuals, households and communities, including those who need special care but lack access to basic social services and social insurance to protect themselves from the risks and consequences of livelihood shocks, social inequities, social exclusion and denial of rights.
Governments' interventions
Alhaji Dauda, in an address, said 91 the government was working at ensuring that the living conditions of people were improved through social intervention programmes. According to him, it was doing this through collaborations with the various districts and assured that his ministry was making efforts to strengthen monitoring and also eliminating any form of duplication in the system. He said the ministry was spearheading a pilot of labour intensive programmes in 60 districts which he said would be scaled up soon.
Mrs Quartey said it was critical to improve on social protection programmes in the country as it would help change living conditions of many people.
She said although the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme was the largest social intervention programme in the country, a lot of people who should be captured under the programme were living in "unacceptable conditions".
She said there was the need to harmonise some of the social intervention programmes currently being undertaken in the country, saying" most of them were developed independent of one another".