AfDB urges Ghana to speed up reforms to cut poverty, unemployment

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has called on Ghana to accelerate structural reforms to drive rapid, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth as the country faces persistent socio-economic challenges.

The Bank said swift transformation is essential to reduce unemployment, income inequality, and poverty levels that continue to burden the population.

Poverty in Ghana stood at 29.5% in 2023, while the unemployment rate reached 13.7%. Income inequality remained high at 43.5% in 2022, placing Ghana above several of its regional peers.

Data from the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) revealed that 24.8% of Ghanaians are multidimensionally poor, with another 20.0% considered vulnerable to multidimensional poverty.

In 2023, the World Bank noted that while poverty rates declined in urban areas, they increased in rural regions. The “Social Protection Programme Spending and Household Welfare in Ghana” report highlighted that extreme poverty is most prevalent among households with no formal education.

The report identified Greater Accra and Ashanti as the main urban regions, while the Volta, Northern, and Upper East regions were the most affected rural areas.

It attributed the worsening rural poverty partly to adverse weather conditions, including droughts linked to El Niño in 2017, which severely impacted agricultural livelihoods in northern Ghana.