Government will reduce extreme poverty – President Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has given the assurance that government would put in place all workable measures that would subsequently end the prevalence of extreme poverty in Ghana.
He said although Ghana performed tremendously well in most of the Millennium Development Goals, there are still lingering challenges that would be smoothened to pave way for prosperity.
President Mahama who jointly launched Global end to poverty campaign with Dr Jim Yong Kim, President of World Bank at Mantse Agbona in Accra on Friday said the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals would help catapult government’s determination to end poverty.
Africa’s strong economic growth has contributed to improving people’s health and education in the past 20 years and major reduction of poverty in several countries.
Inspite of all these gains including reduction of extreme poverty to less than 10 per cent, sharp rises in population in most African countries are still hindering the agenda.
To stem to rise of poverty in the world, most countries with the support of the World Bank are launching the Global programme to end poverty in the coming years.
President Mahama said despite of the reduction of poverty, sanitation, infant and maternal deaths are still quite on the ascendency, a situation he said his administration would work hard to fix in the coming days.
He said climate change has brought about other levels of poverty and government would work around the clock to reverse the trend.
Climate change he explained has not only depleted fish stocks in the seas and rivers, but has also brought about untold hardships to farmers, particularly in the savanna areas of the countries.
Africa he said had the great opportunity to become the food basket for the world in the coming years because of huge arable lands and gave the assurance that leaders of the continent would take advantage of the lands to step up food production.
He appealed to development partners to come out with research programmes that would encourage partnerships for the fight against poverty in the continent and beyond.
President Mahama also commended the World Bank for supporting the Economic Community of West African States in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Dr Jim said the World Bank Group with its partners have the opportunity to end extreme poverty by 2030 because of reduction of poverty in most countries.
“This will be extraordinarily difficult, especially during this time of low global economic growth, low commodity prices and pending interest rates hikes…
“But if countries make tough decisions to enact necessary reforms to spur growth, invest in their people and provide insurance so that people don’t fall back into poverty, we can end extreme poverty in just 15 years.”
He commended the Ghana for investing in health and education that had over the years had positive rippling effects on the fight against extreme poverty.
Source: GNA