Ghana needs to intensify its structural reforms to promote long-term growth and build economic resilience, the World Bank Country Director, Pierre Laporte, has stated.
He said long-term growth prospects would require policies that support investment and human capital development.
Mr Laporte made the call at the World Bank End Poverty Day programme, held in Accra, yesterday, on the theme: “Delivering growth to people through better jobs in Ghana.”
The United Nations set October 17 every year to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
The programme that was mostly attended by the youth provided opportunities for officials of the World Bank to highlight projects the financial institution was financing to create jobs and address poverty in Ghana.
These included Ghana Economic Transformation Project, the Jobs and Skills Project and the Ghana Productivity and Safety Net Project.
Mr Laporte, who is also in charge of the World Bank, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, called on the government of Ghana to make well-targeted investment in agriculture, to create better Jobs for the youth.
“Well-targeted investments can create better jobs, lower income inequality, and boost productivity. Jobs and employment are the surest way to reduce poverty and inequality,” he noted.
Mr Laporte also asked government to ensure more value for the country’s natural resources for export.
He said while the government was intensifying efforts in growing the economy, measures should also be instituted to protect the vulnerable.
Mr Laporte said the burden of inflation and low growth were impacting negatively on the vulnerable, and pushing more Ghanaians into poverty.
The World Bank estimates that about 36 per cent of Ghanaians are poor and that more than a quarter of the people live on less than $2.15 per day.
The World Bank Country Director said the world was off track, and the Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty by 2030 could not be achieved.
“At current rate of progress, the world will likely not meet the global goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030, with estimates indicating nearly 600 million people will still be struggling in extreme poverty by then,” said Laporte.
He said the World Bank was evolving its mission in response to a succession of global crises that were upended development progress.
A senior economist at the World Bank, David Elmakeh, said high inflation had pushed more than 850, 000 Ghanaians into extreme poverty, explaining that the poor spent more of their income on food.
He said food insecurity situation in Ghana had increased due to factors such as inflation.
Paul Coral, a senior economist at the World Bank, said majority of Ghanaians fell below the global poverty line, and mentioned that poverty in the country was concentrated in the Northern part of the country.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
