Government focused on tackling poverty

Accra, Oct.21, GNA - Mr Yaw Barimah, Minister of Manpower Development and Employment on Tuesday said challenges poverty posed were enormous but the government was focused to reducing the phenomenon and to propel the nation into prosperity. He said the surest way to get into the path of development was for workers to have decent change in their attitude to work harder to generate wealth.

Mr Barimah, who was opening a day's national consultative workshop to discuss how to fight poverty through decent work, reminded Ghanaians that, "most developed countries we see today have at one time or the other gone through our present situation and we must also work hard to overcome our present situation of being poor".

The workshop, under the theme: "Work Out of Poverty" was organised by the Ministry in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as a preparation towards an extraordinary summit on employment and poverty alleviation in Africa to be convened by the Africa Union Heads of State in Ouagadougou, next year.

Participants would discuss the national experience on ways and means of dealing with poverty, development and creation of employment opportunities.

Mr. Barimah said government has underlined unemployment as the root cause of poverty and has therefore, embarked on policies aimed at promoting and sustaining employment.

"The President's Initiatives on garments, cassava and salt are all ways to ensure that the employment situation is brought under control. The ultimate desirable state is to boost productive and increase wealth for improved quality life among people".

He said though challenges of poverty were enormous, government was bounded with determination and total commitment to reduce poverty. Mr Barimah reminded participants of the threat of HIV/AIDS to human resources, adding, "we need human resource to work out poverty and any threat must be fearlessly resisted."
He urged Ghanaians to abstain from indiscriminate sex to halt the spread of the deadly HIV/AIDS, which was gradually wiping out the population.
Mr Juan Somavia, ILO Director-General in a video message said half of Africa's population of 400 million people still lived in extreme poverty on one US dollar a day or less.
"This is the highest intra-regional poverty level in the world and the gap between the poorest and richest in Africa is also one of the widest in the world."
He said about 55 per cent of the population in Africa was under 18 years "and they are the most hard hit by unemployment and poverty". Mr Somavia said eradicating poverty was the most difficult social challenge Africa has to face due to the result of structural failures and ineffective economic and social systems and urged participants to come out with useful proposals to serve as inputs for future decision-making to totally eliminate poverty.