Transitioning to SDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa: Assessing National Context Variations and Disparities on the MDG#1 in Ghana

AbstractIntroductionPoverty in sub-Saharan Africa still remains a challenging one and this requires commitment, resources, and strengthening of human resources and implementing effective monitoring and evaluation systems through research to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Ghana is one of the countries in the sub-Saharan that has made significant gains on the MDG#1; however, there are sharp variations in national context. Ghana is composed of three ecological zones, the forest, the coastal and the dry savanna. Whereas the forest zone has relatively poverty conditions due to agricultural potentials, the savanna zone is dry with fewer potentials for agricultural productivity with heavy concentrations of poverty conditions. As a result, the gains made on the MDG#1 are not at the same level of achievement on the three targets.MethodsThe research paper used a systematic review of country reports and documents by focusing on the regional variations of the MDG#1. The main sources of data for this paper were secondary data obtained from aggregate reports on the ten administrative regions of Ghana. In all, two key institutional reports were used, the Ghana Statistical Service and the United Nations Development Programme.FindingsThe analysis of the secondary data revealed that the country has made significant progress on the MDG#1 in the forest zone of the country while the dry savanna zone lagged behind with minimal improvements in the three regions of the north.
Source: Global Social Welfare - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research