PRU WEST DISTRICT DISSEMINATION OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY INDEX (MPI) REPORT

Development Planning Officer Leading the Discussion on the Strategies

The 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) provided data for national development activities and to track the execution of national, continental and global development goals.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report covers the following dimensions of poverty: Living Conditions (electricity, housing, assets, overcrowding, cooking fuel, toilet facility and drinking water), Education (attendance, attainment and school lag), Health (insurance coverage and mortality) and Employment (employed).

The report targeted MMDAs to institute policies and programmes towards eradication of poverty and reduce inequality among socio-economic groups and between geographical settings. These are towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals 1, 3, 4, 10 and 11.

The Pru West District Assembly organized a stakeholder consultative meeting to discuss the findings and how to implement the issues of concern in the report. The District Statistician (DS) presented the 13 indicators of the identified deprivations in the MPI report to participants as depicted in the Bar Chart below.

Source: MPI Report, 2021

The highlights of issues in the Report were presented as follows:

  1. The total household population of the District was 69,211persons and 38.3% of whom were identified to be multidimensional poor with an intensity of 40.8%.
  2. Multidimensional Poverty was identified in male household heads (38.6%) than female household heads (37%).
  3. It was also identified that household sizes that have ten (10) and more members were multidimensional poor (53.5%) than those that have household sizes of one to four members (25.8%)
  4. The higher the educational status of head of household, the lower the multidimensional poverty.
  5. On the sector of employment, household heads that were not working have higher multidimensional poverty (53.8%) than those that were employed (Public sector) with 4.6%.
  6. Household heads into agriculture are multidimensional poor (40.7%) than those in the Industry (16.1%) and Service (12.2%).
  7. Out of the 20 largest communities in the District, Fawoman was identified to be multidimensional poor (64.7%) as against Cherembo (19.5%) which recorded the lowest.

The Pru West District was ranked 205th in the country and 10th in the Bono East Region. This indicated that the authorities must take decisions and implement them to alleviate these households from their multidimensional status.

The participants at the meeting outlined strategies to mitigate the challenges that were identified in the report.

Development Planning Officer Leading the Discussion on the Strategies

The District Co-ordinating Director in his closing remarks entreated Heads of Department/Unit to take interest in the implementation of activities that would alleviate multidimensional poverty in the District. All heads were urged to include the strategies identified into their Annual Action Plans to ensure effective and efficient implementation.

PAUL KWARTENG

DISTRICT STATISTICIAN

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