We'll reduce poverty level - Ahwoi

Daily Graphic (spread), Tues. April 20/10

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
THE Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, has given the assurance that the government will do everything possible to reduce the poverty level in the country.
Given the agricultural sector’s large population and high poverty rate, Mr Ahwoi said any poverty alleviation initiative of the government would substantially benefit farmers.
According to Mr Ahwoi, three out of every 10 Ghanaians woke up each day neither knowing where their next meal would come from nor were they properly housed or clothed.
In a speech read on his behalf at a five-day regional technical training sampling workshop for statisticians from 16 English-speaking African countries in Accra yesterday, Mr Ahwoi said the living condition of people was worse in other African countries.
The workshop, organised by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture (UNDA) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), brought together the statisticians to upgrade their technical knowledge and skills in the implementation of the new World Programme for Census of Agricultural Surveys.
According to Mr Ahwoi, the results of the Ghana Living Standard Survey had shown consistently that poverty among people working in the agricultural sector was the highest among all the major economic activity groups in the country.
He said “as leaders and technocrats who are fortunate to escape this situation of falling below the poverty line, I believe we should have the moral obligation to do our best for our compatriots by giving our best to produce accurate information that would provide the basis for evidence-based decisions that would go a long way to improve upon their lives”.
Mr Ahwoi said although governments all over the continent appreciated the important role of statistics in guiding policy planning and decision-making, budgetary constraints made it impossible for them to support other activities including statistics development.
He, however, said the government of Ghana was determined to change the status quo and had, therefore, supported the upcoming 2010 Population and Housing Census with 50 per cent of its budget and expressed the hope to support the next Agricultural Census, which would be undertaken in 2011.
For her part, the Government Statistician, Dr Grace Bediako, said the country was ready to conduct an agricultural sampling 2011, which, according to her, would guide policies in the country.
According to her, the last agricultural sampling in the country was done in 1985 after the 1984 National Population Survey, saying that the time had come for the country to update its records to benefit people in the agricultural sector.
She said the agricultural sector had for a long time not been accorded the needed recognition that it deserved in terms of statistics, although it continued to be the main stay of most people.
She, therefore, called on statisticians to ensure that they produced relevant data that would inform policies and decisions across the continent to change the standard of living of farmers, who formed the majority of the working force on the continent.
The Regional Representative of FAO, Mr Musa Saibou Mbenga, in a brief remark, said the pivotal role which agricultural statistics played in promoting agricultural development and overall socio-economic development on the continent had been repeatedly underscored.
He said it was the hope of FAO that the workshop would impart knowledge of refined tools needed for collection of reliable agricultural statistics in the region, noting that it would help participating countries to face the challenge of organising collection of agricultural statistics in a cost-effective manner.
The USDA Representative, Mrs Theresa Holland, said the US government had a priority to support food security on the African continent, adding that it was ready to help improve on agricultural statistic systems across the continent.