Key facts: Ghana
Last updated: June 2008
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- Population:
22.9 million (World Bank Statistics, 2007).
- Average life expectancy:
59 years (Human Development Report, Ghana,
2007). UK: 78 years (UN Statistics Division
(UNSD), 2007).
- Average per capita income:
US$683 (Annual Progress Report of Ghana
Poverty Reduction Strategy II, 2007). UK:
US$69,560 (£37,600) (World Bank development
data, 2005).
- Gross national income (GNI):
US$12 billion (UNSD, 2006).
- Average annual growth rate:
6.3% (Ghana Ministry of Finance and Economic
Planning, 2007).
- Percentage of people not meeting
daily food needs: 18% (Ghana Living
Standards Survey, 2005/06).
- Women dying in childbirth:
8214 per 100,000 (Demographic and Health
Survey, 1998). UK: 13 per 100,000 (UNSD,
2007).
- Children dying before age 5:
111 per 1,000 live births (Multiple
Indicator Cluster Survey, 2006). UK: 6 per
1,000 (UNSD, 2005).
- Percentage of children
receiving primary school
education: 83% (net) (Preliminary
Education Sector Performance Report, Ghana
Ministry of Education, Science and Sports,
2008).
- Percentage of people aged 15-49
living with HIV/AIDS: 2.6% (Ghana
HIV/AIDS Sentinel Survey, 2007).
- Percentage of people with access to
safe, clean water: 53% (rural
population) (Ghana Partnership Results
Matrix, 2008).
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DFID: Working to reduce poverty in Ghana
Making aid effective | Governance
| Health | Education
| Water | HIV/AIDS |
Private sector/trade/growth
| Millennium Development Goals
The UK is Ghana’s largest bilateral donor, directly providing
over £85 million a year, second only to the World Bank in terms of
total aid. A new country business plan for Ghana is being developed
that will set out how DFID will support the country. This will be
linked to the
Ghana Joint Assistance Strategy (GJAS), which was signed by 17
of Ghana’s development partners in 2007.
Between 2005 and 2007, we provided more than £205 million in support
of Ghana’s poverty reduction plans. From 2008 to 2010, we will give
at least £250 million in aid, of which 86% will be in the form of
Poverty Reduction Budget Support (PRBS), including around £150
million as Multi-Donor Budget Support
(MDBS). PRBS, coupled with growth in
domestic revenues, has helped Ghana to increase spending on health
and education.
The country continues to receive debt relief under the Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) – $160 million in 2008. It
is also benefiting from the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI),
through which it will receive $4 billion over 40 years from 2005.
DFID, other donors and the Ghanaian government have produced a
Harmonisation Action Plan that sets out targets to improve aid
effectiveness by 2010. To this end, we have supported the
development of mutual accountability options for Ghana following
lessons learned in Tanzania and Zambia. The Ghanaian government has
recently produced a draft aid management policy, started the
division-of-labour process among its development partners and agreed
to pilot mutual accountability in the health sector.
To improve further harmonisation, development partners have
agreed to share technical resources and to streamline the policy
dialogue with the government in an attempt to reduce their demands
on its time.
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Ghana continues to lead the way in Africa on good governance. It
was the first country to submit itself to being reviewed under the
Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in 2005 and has been regularly
reviewed since. Currently about £10 million of DFID’s programme is
allocated for ‘flanking measures’ -programmes that maximise the
impact of funds channelled through government systems. Some of these
programmes include:
- £5 million to support reforms of public financial management
systems such as improving procurement processes and
strengthening the oversight of Parliament’s Public Accounts
Committee. Overall this will help government manage expenditure
and improve the allocation of funds in line with the poverty
reduction strategy.
- Supporting civil society and business associations through a
number of competitive grant facilities (about £9.4 million for
2004-2010) to help strengthen the voices of ordinary Ghanaians on
issues affecting them and their ability to hold government and
donors to account. These facilities include: Rights and Voice
Initiative (RAVI), Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme (GRAP) and
Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund (BUSAC)
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In 2007, about 15% of UK funding (in addition to PRBS) was
directly used to support Ghana’s health sector, including:
- £42.5 million to support the Ministry of Health’s four-year
programme of work (2008-12), with the overall goal ‘to ensure a
healthy and productive population that reproduces itself safely’
- £6 million in 2006 and £2.7 million in 2007 (through UNICEF)
for insecticide-treated bed nets as a response to malaria
mortality rates.
DFID also supports a number of health-related initiatives to encourage
collaboration between Ghanaian and British research institutes.
A continued investment in the health sector by DFID is vital given that
Ghana’s progress in the Millennium Development Goals to do with child and
maternal mortality (see below) is off-track.
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Following the UK’s approval of a £105 million grant, Ghana became
the first country in Africa to have a 10-year (2006-15) education
strategic plan, backed by a long-term funding commitment.
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In 2005-08, DFID committed £7.7 million to Ghana’s water and
sanitation sector. Our funding supports water supplies in small
towns and villages in the Greater Accra, Volta, Eastern and Upper
West regions, some of which are areas in which guinea worm infection
is endemic. A proportion of the funding (£1 million) is going
towards assisting the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing
to become more effective in its role as leader of the sector, and to
help the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission regulate the urban
water utility.
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Ghana continues to build on existing HIV/AIDS programmes and
intensify interventions aimed at preventing new infections,
especially among most-at-risk groups and young people. DFID’s
contribution of £7.5 million over three years (2006–09) will help
expand prevention, treatment and care interventions.
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Ghana’s economy remains strong, but its annual growth rate of
6.3% in 2007 must increase if the country is to achieve
middle-income status by 2015. Concerted action will be needed to
improve the business environment, build trade capacity and ensure
that growth is equitable and ‘pro-poor’. In 2005-2011, DFID will
provide about £13 million to support:
- the implementation of the Ghanaian government’s Private
Sector Development Strategy, to reduce red tape for businesses
and improve government services to the private sector
- financial sector reforms to encourage more access to financial
services by more Ghanaians, especially the poor.
DFID is also helping with the development of a support
strategy for northern Ghana so that it can achieve greater
levels of growth to reduce poverty.
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Ghana is making good progress towards several of the MDGs, but
more improvement is needed in other areas.
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
The percentage of those living below the national poverty line has
fallen from 52% in 1991-92 to 26% in 2005-06.
MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education
The percentage of children of official school age (net enrolment)
who are enrolled in primary schools rose from 79% in 2006-07 to 83%
in 2007-08. The total number of children enrolled at the primary
level irrespective of age (gross enrolment) increased from 94% in
2006-07 to just 95% in 2007-08.
MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
For every 100 boys in primary education, there are 96 girls.
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
For every 10 children in Ghana, one dies before his/her fifth
birthday.
MDG 5: Improve maternal health
Ghana’s maternal mortality ratio has remained largely unchanged for
a decade: for every 100,000 women giving birth, 214 die. However,
maternal mortality rates have not been measured since 1998.
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
The overall HIV prevalence in Ghana is stabilising, with a
relatively low rate compared to that of other sub-Saharan African
countries. The median HIV prevalence among pregnant women in 2007
was 2.6%, showing a slight decrease from the 2006 rate of 3.2%. As
for malaria, UNICEF estimates that the anti-malarial bed net
campaign funded by DFID will save as many as 52,000 children’s lives
by 2011.
MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Recent estimates suggest that an equivalent of 9.6% of Ghana’s gross
domestic product (GDP) is lost annually through environmental
degradation - that is, unsustainable management of the country’s
natural resources and health costs related to water supply and
sanitation and indoor/outdoor air pollution.
MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Donors are partnering for development, most
significantly through GJAS (see ‘Making aid effective’ above). In
addition, almost 80% of donor funds are going through government
systems.
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