By Lydia Kukua Asamoah/Rihanna Adam, GNA
Accra, Jan. 23, GNA – The First Lady, Mrs
Rebecca Akufo-Addo, Thursday launched Ghana’s Multidimensional Child Poverty
Report and called for a more passionate commitment towards child welfare.
Expressing her passion towards the welfare
and development of all children, the First Lady said being more committed to
children would help in laying the foundation for developing skilled, productive
and responsible citizens for the future.
The 107-page Report, among others, revealed
that 73.4 per cent of children in Ghana are multi-dimensionally poor while only
2.5 per cent are without any deprivation.
Also, the vast majority of children face
multiple deprivation in at least three out of four of the eight dimensions,
namely; nutrition, health, learning, protection, water, sanitation, housing and
information.
Child poverty is measured using the dimensions
of the well-being that reflects the needs and rights of Ghanaian children, the
report indicated.
It, therefore, recommended the need for
multi-sectoral responses and coordination that allows for more synergy in the
national response to child poverty.
The child poverty analysis Report was put
together by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), the Ghana
Statistical Service, and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social
Protection, in collaboration with UNICEF.
Mrs Akufo-Addo said every child deserved to
have access to good nurturing, nutrition, health, education, water, sanitation
and general wellbeing.
“These are all critical building blocks for
child development, without which we cannot derive the expected dividend in our
human development. We need to deal with inequality from its roots”.
She said the country had long identified
child poverty as a problem but the Report had finally provided the empirical
basis to generate meaningful discussions and solutions to child poverty.
It also provides the foundation for
discussing child poverty, which, unfortunately, had not received enough policy
attention in the national conversations on poverty and inequalities.
“Again, by focusing on the multiple
dimensions of poverty, including its spatial distribution, the Report provides
the opportunity for more precise sector specific interventions as well as a
baseline for measuring future progress.”
The First Lady said she was particularly
happy that the document also focused on child malnutrition, “an area I have
been championing at both the local and continental levels.”
She called for the investment in child
nutrition to serve as a foundation for the development of a child’s cognitive
abilities, which, in turn, would determine their learning outcomes, income and
health status as adults.
“It is the most single, critical investment,
which has long-term impacts on a child’s long-term development.”
Mrs Akufo-Addo also emphasised the need for
a multi-sectoral action plan, effective coordination and results framework,
adding that adopting that approach would provide the foundation for tracking
the progress of set target of reducing child poverty by half, from 73 per cent
to 37 per cent by 2030.
Dr Kodjo Mensah-Abrampa, the
Director-General of the NDPC, said the purpose of the study was to help
understand the complexity of child poverty in Ghana by investigating children’s
access to various goods and services crucial for their long-term development.
He said to help reduce poverty, there was
the need to invest in Ghana’s youthful populations and lauded the Free
Compulsory Basic Education, the Free SHS Policy and the Free Mental Health
Care, as they were all key tools in reducing poverty levels.
Ms Anne-Claire Dufay, the UNICEF Country
Representative, said the Report would be a useful source of data and evidence
for advocacy and policy making, while serving as a good reference for many
sectors to become better informed of the multiple facets of child poverty in
Ghana.
In 2019, UNICEF supported 74 countries to
conduct measurement in relation to monetary child poverty while 55 countries
analysed multidimensional child poverty, she noted.
In more than 22 of the countries, such
efforts and analysis have led to development of evidence-based policies and
programmes, aimed at reducing child poverty.
Ms Dufay said the launch of Ghana’s Child
Poverty Report showed that the country had much interest in achieving the Sustainable
Development Goal 1, the target that sought to reduce multidimensional poverty
by 2030 to 36.7 per cent.
GNA