Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr Esseim Mensah-Abrampa, has disclosed that poverty in Ghana has been cut in half over the last two decades.
This remarkable development signals a positive transformation in the nation’s efforts towards sustainable development and improved living standards.
During an interview on Accra-based TV3, he emphasized that Ghana, as a lower middle-income economy, should not be considered a poor country.
Speaking to Kemmini Amanor, host of the Hot Issues program, he conveyed, “Ghana is not impoverished; we are classified as a lower-middle-income country. By employing various global indicators for development assessment, we can distinguish between the least developed countries, developing countries, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income, and fully developed nations.”
“So it tells you that if you are going by these five graduations, we are right in the middle.”
He elucidated why the lower-middle-income status didn’t manifest in the lives of the majority of Ghanaians, stating that: “It does reflect in the lives of the people because per capita income, how much you earn, and the sophistication in our lives and our well-being are far higher than the average in the world.”
He added “Definitely, we cannot live on the same income bracket which means that definitely there are some people who are poor but there is a process which has gone on for a very long time within twenty years.
“We have been able to half that, it means we have been able to move half of the people who are poor right into a higher range of well being and satisfaction. So it is a process,” he stressed.
The World Bank defines lower-middle-income economies as those with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita between $1,036 and $4,045; and upper-middle-income economies – as those with a GNI per capita between $4,046 and $12,535 (2021).
Middle-income countries are home to 75% of the world’s population and 62% of the world’s poor.