A RE-LOOK AT POVERTY THROUGH THE LENS OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN GHANA: DRIVERS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

The study aims a re-examination of the poverty situation in Ghana using the Alkire-Foster multidimensional poverty framework. Using cross-sectional data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS7) collected on 14,009 households, the results revealed that multidimensional poverty was higher for the Northern belt followed by the Middle belt and then the Coastal belt. The results further indicated that different socio-economic and supply-side factors significantly affect multidimensional poverty in different locations of the country. The heterogeneous effect of socio-economic variables on multidimensional poverty across belts implies that designing “best-fits” policy strategy may be more effective than “one size fits all” policy strategy.