The National Development Planning Commission has pledged its commitment in working with the government to institute policies that will reduce the rate of poverty, food insecurity and unemployment in the country.
This follows the release of the Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey by the Ghana Statistical Service which showed that 49.1 percent of the Ghanaian population is food insecure, 44.1 percent is multidimensionally poor, and a 0.5 percent increase in unemployment in the second quarter of 2022.
The Director-General of the Commission, Dr. Kodjo Mensah-Abrampa, speaking to Citi Business News on the back of the survey said the government will also take a look at the review of some of its policies if need be.
“Very often, the first and second quarters are challenging for the country in general. But coming to the third and fourth quarters, the situation might change. A lot of jobs are also created when there’s an economic boom in the last quarter and there are a lot of sales because of Christmas. So I’m very sure the third and fourth quarters might give new responses. Notwithstanding that the global situation has still not changed, it might not be as positive as we expected.”
“But it gives us the direction that we should go that we cannot look at the three issues in an isolated manner. The good news is that the NDPC and the office of the President are working in tandem with the GSS to get this done.”
The Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey is the first nationally representative high-frequency household panel survey in Ghana.
The survey, conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service, is being conducted to obtain quarterly and annual data on household final consumption expenditure and a wide scope of demographic, economic and welfare variables including statistics on labour, food security, multi-dimensional poverty and health status for research, policy, and planning.
The maiden publication presents highlights from the first and second quarter food insecurity, multidimensional poverty, and labour statistics reports.
Major findings
Among persons in the labour force (15 years and older) about 380,000 are triple burdened i.e. simultaneously food insecure, multidimensionally poor, and unemployed.
The Savannah Region has the highest percent of triple burdened persons (8.2%) which is more than twice the national average of 3.2%.
The statistics revealed that between the first and second quarter of 2022, food insecurity dropped by 7 percentage points while multidimensional poverty dropped by 2.6%. Unemployment rate increased by 0.5 percentage points.
The findings also indicated that about 390,000 persons 15 years and older unemployed in quarter 1 remained unemployed in quarter 2 of 2022 while between the first and second quarters of 2022, about 445,000 persons 15 years and older outside the labour force joined the number of unemployed persons.
The labour statistics also indicated that about two-thirds of the employed population are engaged in vulnerable employment with significant variation across urban areas (56.4%) and rural (80%).
The report also highlighted gender inequalities in the labour force indicating that unadjusted gender pay gap in Q1 is 37.3 percent, with males earning a mean hourly pay of GH¢11.00 and females GH¢6.90.
The report further highlighted gender inequalities in the labour force indicating that unadjusted gender pay gap in Q1 is 37.3 percent, with males earning a mean hourly pay of GH¢11.00 and females GH¢6.90.
Other highlights from the release indicated 49.1% of persons in Ghana are moderately food insecure, 12.3% are severely food insecure and 44.1% are multidimensional poor. Health insurance coverage is the leading contributor to multidimensional poverty with about 14 million persons in Ghana not currently having active health insurance coverage.
