In the past, poverty measurement focused mainly on income deprivation to evaluate the living conditions and overall well-being of a population. While monetary poverty is closely associated with socioeconomic status, it is now widely recognized that poverty is multidimensional (Sen, 1999; Oshiro and Kan, 2014; Su-Jung, 2020). Therefore, using a multidimensional approach to assess poverty provides a more thorough understanding of the population, complementing traditional monetary poverty statistics (Alkire, 2020).Statistics on multidimensional poverty are essential to guide national development. It is a valuable source of information about the distribution and changes in the general wellbeing of the population for decision makers and other stakeholders. The multidimensional poverty also captures overlapping deprivations experienced by poor people in the country, using thirteen non-monetary indicators across four dimensions – education, health, living standards and employment.
The workshop aimed to reflect both the incidence of poverty. That is; what proportion of people are poor and the intensity of poverty (how poor they are). The workshop also explained the differences in the dimensions and indicators and reveal who is poor, the dimensions they are poor in and the degree of their deprivation.The workshop also presented statistics on the proportion of the population that is multidimensional poor, focusing on household size, sex, age, locality, education level, employment sector, and marital status.
The District Chief Executive, Hon. Mohammed Haruna addressed the meeting, emphasizing the importance of the exercise for assembly development and ensuring its report’s consideration in decision-making.
The presentation was performed by Mr. Frimpong Anokye, the District Statistician. He introduced the presentation by explaining why poverty remains the greatest global challenge. He used the goal one of agenda 20230 which aims to eradicate poverty in all its forms everywhere and the Ghana’s Medium- Term National Development Policy Framework to explain both international and national effort in eradicating poverty. He also said the MPI (Multidimensional Poverty Index) complements the monetary poverty measures by reflecting the deprivations that people face simultaneously in other dimensions (health, education, standard of living and employment), which are also essential to guarantee a dignified life.
Discussions on the findings and use of the results.
Discussions was conducted after the presentation which was led by the District Planning Officer, Mr. Awudu S. Karim . All DPCU members present were given the opportunity to discuss how they were going to use the report in their departments. This were the presentations made on how to use the report by the departments.
EDUCATION : The District Education Director made mention of using the report to engage stakeholders in the educational sectors within the district to find ways to improve school attendance and school attainment rate. After the presentation of the MPI report, it came to attention that most communities had no JHS structures. Due to this, the education director made it known that a proposal would be written using the MPI report to request for contract for the establishment of JHS in communities without JHS but have primary schools.
HEALTH : Mr. Walter Kpoh, the representative from Ghana Health Service made it known that, ongoing interventions would be strengthen to maintain the success of the district in the ‘mortality’ indicator and also to improve the poor perform of the ‘health insurance’ indicator. He said, they were going to coordinate with the District Health Insurance Authority to find solutions to poor perform of the health insurance indicator.
The Pru East District MPI report ended with a closing remarks from the District Coordinating Director in the person of Alhaji Musah Bawa Lensini. He advised participants to make maximum use of the report. The district statistical department also scheduled to have media engagementS on the report to sensitize the people in the district about the report.