The Minister for Special Development Initiative, Mavis Hawa Koomson, has indicated that information from the Ghana Statistical Service on living standards in Ghana as of 2016 reveals that the Northern Region still has the highest level of poverty among the three regions in the northern part of the country.
Besides, it is the poorest region in Ghana. According to her, the survey reported that the Northern Region saw a marginal decline in its high level of poverty from 55.7% to 50.4%.
The Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions continue to have the highest levels of poverty in the country. Since 2006, some efforts have been made towards poverty reduction in the these regions but poverty still remains high with more than half of the population of the regions still living below the poverty line.
In line with this and as part of government’s commitment to alleviate poverty in the three regions, Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) has been re-organized into Northern Development Authority (NDA) with the aim of developing measures and policies to eradicate poverty in the three regions.
The NDA has been mandated by government to address the high levels of poverty in the regions to ensure that the poor benefit from the programme.
The minister said the team members that served on IPEP would be absorbed into the NDA to continue their work.
She indicated that the new authority would, as part of its work, review the performance of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).
“. . . I believe we have the opportunity to review the performance of the SADA and improve upon their shortcomings; we need to make the living standards of the three northern regions better than what we see today in fulfillment of the promises of government,” she emphasized.
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