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World Food And Poverty Day Commemorations In Ghana: Ghana’s Achievements Consistent With Public Opinion

October 16, 2015 was the celebration of ‘World Food Day'. A day later (i.e. October 17), another international day, the ‘World Poverty Eradication Day’, which in a large measure is related to the ‘World Food Day’, was marked globally.

The objectives for instituting these two global days are somehow linked. While the World Food Day celebration is to raise public awareness about hunger challenges and encourage people all over the world to get involved in the fight against hunger, the World Poverty Day is meant to promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution.

In Ghana, the two international days were celebrated with the President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, visiting the country to participate in high-level talks; join in the commemoration of the World Poverty Day, and launch the report on poverty in Africa. His visit was also in recognition of the progress made by the country toward ending extreme poverty.

Statistics from the 2015 Global Hunger Index show that Ghana’s score on the index decline from 45.7 in 1990 to 36.8 in 1995, 29.9 in 2000, 23.3 in 2005, and 15.5 in 2015.

The World Bank Group report titled “Poverty Reduction in Ghana: Progress and Challenges” also indicates that within the past two decades Ghana was able to reduce poverty rate by half from 52.6% in 1991 to 21.4% in 2012. This figure, according to the report, was less than half the African average of 43%. Furthermore, the report noted that extreme poverty also declined from 37.6 per cent in 1991, to 9.6 per cent in 2013.

Public opinion data on experience with food shortages and lived poverty largely supports these findings on Ghana. In general, the Afrobarometer survey in Ghana has consistently been reporting declines in the percentages of citizens that say they experienced food shortages since 2002 (i.e. from 40% in 2002 to 28% in 2014).

Furthermore, the percentages of people that claimed went without water, medical care, fuel for cooking, and cash income have all witnessed remarkable declines between 2002 and 2014 (see Table 1). 

Table 1: Over time trends: Percentage of Ghanaians who say they went without the basic needs below once or twice, several times, many times, or always | 2002 – 2014


Indeed, the Lived Poverty Scores computed from citizens’ experiences with shortages of the five basic needs  - food, water, medical care, fuel for cooking, and cash income clearly shows that since 2002, experience with poverty has been on downward trend (see Figure 1).