3. Trends of Poverty, Economic Structure, Human Capital, Infrastructure and Environmental Degradation
Spatial analysis of poverty: Combining geospatial data and survey data to Public Disclosure Authorized study regional inequality in Ghana Tomomi Tanaka (World Bank) Jia Jun Lee (World Bank) Abstract This study combines district level poverty rates, population census data, income data, and Public Disclosure Authorized geospatial data to investigate how human capital, structural change, infrastructure, and environmental degradation impacted poverty and employment in Ghana. We find that poverty reduction was primarily achieved through increased share of working age population, employment rates and income in the service sector, shift of labor from agriculture to the service sector, expansion of access to electricity, and increased rainfall. Further, the paper investigates the factors that have affected changes in agricultural income and shift of labor from agriculture to industry and services. Soil erosion had a large impact on the changes in agricultural income. Improved access to electricity, road, and market was crucial for creating jobs in non-agricultural sectors. In areas where droughts are severe, more people became engaged in agriculture and less in industry and services. It may be because severe droughts prevent people from investing in non-agricultural sectors. The results of this study suggest that for Ghana to reduce poverty and Public Disclosure Authorized create jobs in non-agricultural sectors in lagging areas, it needs to invest in infrastructure, and take actions to mitigate damages from soil degradation and droughts. Public Disclosure Authorized 1 1. Introduction Ghana has achieved significant poverty reduction since the 1990s and accomplished the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing the poverty rate by more than half.
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