6.8m Ghanaians are poor - GSS report

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The 0.8% reduction in the incidence of poverty between 2012 and 2017 has been minimal.

Between 2006 and 2017, the number of poor people in the country reduced from seven million to 6.8 million. These are contained in the Ghana Living Standard Survey seven (GLSS7).

It was launched in Accra by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), supported by the World Bank, UK-DFID, and the Dutch Government.

Acting Government Statistician, Baah Wadieh, who launched the report, said poverty has been declining over the past three decades, indicating that government policies have impacted positively in poverty reduction.

The GLSS is a nationally representative household survey implemented in the country over the past three decades to monitor welfare systems, as well as the progress of socio-economic policies.

Ghana had conducted seven rounds of the living standards survey since 1987. Mr Wadieh said the GLSS7 was launched in October 2016 and fieldwork commenced on October 24, 2016 after field personnel were taken through 25 days of rigorous training.

He said 27 teams were formed, with 25 of these teams deployed regularly in the field, with two teams serving as the relieving teams.

He said the goal of the 2016/2017 survey is to make available relevant data for informed decision-making and the formulation of policies to address the needs of the population.

According to him, the target of halving poverty before 2015 as set by the Millennium Development Goals could not have been established for the country but for the conduct of the GLSSs and the production of the relevant indicators and publication of the Poverty Profile reports over the years.

He said with the current reporting on the UN Agenda 2030, AU Agenda 2063 and the national development agenda, there is the need to produce such reports and indicators regularly to aid the tracking of progress.

Baah Wadieh said the GSS plans to reduce the periodicity for the conduct of the living standard surveys from seven years to three or four years in order to produce reports and indicators more frequently to track the impact of programmes and interventions.

The acting government statistician explained that the change in the frequency of production would require substantial resources, given the length of fieldwork and the number of personnel involved.

He commended the respondents who co-operated with the field personnel during the conduct of the GLSS7 fieldwork, and appealed to the public to continue to co-operate with the field personnel and provide the needed information during the conduct of censuses and surveys.

Credit: The Finder