Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Impetus For National Development

A new global agenda has been launched. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 expected outcomes of progress the world wants to achieve by the end of 2030. Together they present a comprehensive array of development pursuits that provide motivation for corporate action by the global community.

More strategically, the SDGs provide opportunity for individual countries to standardize their development policies and thereby construct robust measurement frameworks that would assess the relevance, efficiency and sustainability of their national social and economic development. Ghana can take advantage of each goal to enhance national development programming and reinforce our middle income status.

SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

In general, poverty may be considered as inadequate provision of the basic necessities of life, including food, clothing and shelter. Technically however, poverty is defined in various ways, in non-monetary and monetary terms. The measurement of non-monetary poverty is informed by Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

In Ghana, dimensions of MPI include education, health and standard of living. MPI measurements using data from the 2010 population and housing census on selected indicators of the three dimensions, showed that 42% of the population was poor. The indicators used were number of adult household members who have not completed primary school and number of primary school-going children who are not in school; number of under-5 death in the last 12 months and maternal mortality; access to improved water, toilet, cooking fuel, national electricity grid, use of improved dwelling floor and number of persons per room.

Extreme poverty refers to people living on less than $1.25 (GHS. 4.76) a day. According to the World food Programme (WFP), at least 45% of the Ghanaian population lives on less than $1.25 a day. This means that almost half the country is extremely poor. Why is this? How can we be living in such a resource-rich country and have more than one-in-four persons extremely poor. Such people would not be able to afford one good meal a day: an average plate of waakye with gari and macaroni and a piece of wele. What will they have left to buy soap, an underwear, a mat to sleep on or a mosquito coil? The poorest locations in Ghana are the three regions in the north and the central region. Sixty-three per cent of the poor in Ghana are in communities in the north.

The first target of the SDG goal of ending poverty in all its forms is to eradicate extreme poverty. This means that, in the next fifteen years there must be nobody in Ghana living on less than $1.25 a day. Can we achieve this? How do we go about it? This is why the SADA flop is such a drain; and the GYEDA scandal such a pain. Surely, Ghana does not lack plans and policies. The challenge is with our programming and accountability systems.

Much of the poverty is in the rural areas. Therefore, we must focus on the rural economy, creating more enterprises and generating jobs. This is why the Rural Enterprises Programme is a good example of how we can make progress in ending rural poverty. The objective of the REP is to enhance the living standard of the rural poor and increase their income through micro and small scale businesses. The REP approach is both efficient and sustainable because it builds local businesses and raises entrepreneurs. This is one of the best ways of eliminating poverty.

The REP model is being implemented in 169 districts and needs to be consolidated to avoid a thin spread void of depth. One big reason the REP is working is because of its strong monitoring and accountability system. The development partners involved have insisted on stringent performance measures and the staff are keeping up the pace. There is very little room for manipulating the system. That’s where the difference is. Poverty reduction programmes controlled by government agencies seem to have inadequate monitoring and accountability functions. There could be systems in place but they do not function efficiently. There is a problem with the human beings managing the government systems. One way to correct this is to strengthen civil society and independent individuals and institutions as watch dogs that can bark and bite.

Another way to end poverty is to have a strong social protection system. Firstly, we must have a good understanding of social protection. The idea is not to hand out cash to poor people for the sake of it or to buy their conscience for cheap political gain. Rather, it is to protect vulnerable groups with the objective of removing the vulnerability not deepening it. The slower a social protection measure is in removing vulnerabilities of its beneficiaries, the more inefficient it is and thus must be rationalized. Of course, there are vulnerabilities associated with life-cycle situations such as aging and others such as disabilities that impinge on economic ability.

For these, social protection measures may be more or less permanent. Our LEAP programme seems to be making good strides, with 200,000 households, translating into 800,000 individuals targeted to be reached by end of 2015. The amount of cash has also increased by GH₵16.00. Single person households now receive GH₵64.00, two-person, tree-persons and four or more persons households now receive GH₵78.00, GH₵66.00 and GH₵106 respectively. What is more encouraging is that, an impact evaluation of LEAP, by University of Ghana (Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research-ISSER) and the University of Carolina in 2013, indicated a positive impact of LEAP on education, increasing both enrolment and attendance, thus helping to also reduce non-monetary poverty. But there were other findings that are worrying.

For example, the implementation of LEAP was found to be inconsistent, with irregular payments resulting in zero consumption in beneficiary households. Also, although beneficiary households had been extensively covered by the NHIS this did not reflect in their actual utilization of health services. They were still paying for their health needs from their own pocket. In other words, the NHIS did not cater for the actual health needs of LEAP beneficiaries. These challenges of the LEAP programme need to be addressed effectively if the programme will play its role in the elimination of poverty. A key aspect of social protection is the establishment of resilient floors.

By definition, Social protection floors are nationally defined sets of basic social security guarantees that should ensure, as a minimum that, over the life cycle, all in need have access to essential health care and to basic income security which together secure effective access to goods and services defined as necessary at the national level. The social protection floor in Ghana is not clear, to say the least. What are the social security guarantees for children, youth, the unemployed and the aged in Ghana?