The Multidimensional Poverty index (MPI) report launched by the Ghana Statistical Service with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the German Agency for International Cooperation, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative of Oxford University, has painted a rather gloomy picture of rural poverty in Ghana.
According to the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, which monitors the social progress of individuals and households towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, 45.6 percent of Ghana’s population is multi-dimensionally poor.
Speaking at the launch, Government Statistician and National Project Director of the report, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, said the report helps to provide an assessment of deprivation of basic survival needs for the implementation of policy interventions.
The report looked at how people experience poverty in their health, education, and living standards.
The intensity of poverty is 51.7 percent, meaning that poor people experience, on average, more than half of the weighted deprivations. The MPI, which is the product of the incidence and intensity of poverty, is 0.236.
It also showed that the rural-urban differences are evident, with 64.6 percent of the rural population and 27.0 percent of the urban population being multi-dimensionally poor.
It also stated that the Northern Region recorded the highest rate of multidimensional poverty – with every eight out of ten persons being multi-dimensionally poor (80.0%), followed by the Upper East Region- with close to seven out of every ten persons being multi-dimensionally poor (68.0%).
