A Poverty Profile for Ghana, 1987–1988

Abstract

The object of this paper is to establish a baseline poverty profile for Ghana using the Ghana Living Standards Survey. The profile does speak, in general terms, to current policy concerns in Ghana. It provides support for an improvement in the rural-urban terms of trade, in favor of the former. Poverty in Ghana is overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon. Thus, a policy of raising the producer prices of key agricultural commodities is unlikely to be in conflict with the objective of poverty alleviation. However, the profiles developed in this paper allow a more detailed differentiation to be made between different crops. On the expenditure side, the poverty profiles can also speak to policy debates. They provide an empirical framework for assessing the poverty impact of various policy options on, for example, gasoline pricing. However, they do not provide the whole answer. To do that would require a full analysis that poverty profiles by their very nature cannot capture. Finally, the profiles highlight achievements on the basic needs front. Although not providing an analysis of policy options, these profiles do provide a base-line and an input into more detailed sectoral or sub-sectoral analysis of interventions.