Halving extreme poverty "potentially unlikely" - Prof Armah

Accra (Greater Accra), 31.11.2002 -- Ghana's development target of halving the proportion of those in extreme poverty by 2015 is "potentially unlikely".

Professor Bartholomew Armah, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs said this when he reviewed the Ghana Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report in Accra on Thursday at a meeting of representatives of all the UN agencies in Ghana, donor agencies, NGO's and government agencies.

He said current estimates indicating a growth rate of four percent is consistent with halving poverty by 2015, "but at a population growth rate of 2.6 percent, the absolute number of poor persons would remain virtually unchanged?. However," Prof. Armah noted, " a growth rate of seven percent would halve the poverty rate and reduce the absolute number of poor persons in the population. The linear trend line indicates that the targeted poverty rate of 26 per cent in 2015 understates the current rate of decline in the incidence of poverty. The poverty rate is currently fixed at 52 percent.

Prof Armah explained that the achievement of the new target, would require a stable macroeconomic environment, increased support for food and livestock farmers, a more efficient public sector, substantive links between Ghana's poverty reduction strategy and the annual budget. He also called for an increase in private sector investments and a more sustainable population growth rate.