By Florence Afriyie Mensah, GNA
Kumasi, Feb.23, GNA – Professor Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei, a Development Geographer at the Department of Geography and Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has recommended to the government and other stakeholders to embrace the Basic Means Approach (BMA) in ending all forms of poverty.
He observed that, the BMA had a greater tendency of creating appropriate context for the empowerment and enhancement of productive capacities of the poor in ways that guaranteed their independence, assertiveness, resilience and release from the shackles of poverty through self‐help initiatives and sustainable local livelihoods.
According to him, the BMA was not entirely new, but the approach conceptualised development as “expansion of people’s capabilities”.
Prof Adjei, delivering his professorial inaugural lecture at the KNUST, indicated that, researchers have monitored and evaluated a number poverty reduction and social policy interventions including Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) and Rural Enterprise Programme, and concluded that, the BMA had greater tendency of creating appropriate context for the empowerment and enhancement of the productive capacities of the poor.
The lecture was titled “Eradicating Poverty in the Age of Sustainable Development: The Basic Means Approach”.
It probed that Multidimensional Poverty Indicators have always been associated with rural than urban communities and crop farmers in rural Ghana remain the occupational group with the highest incidence and severity of poverty and livelihood vulnerabilities amidst threats of climate change and land grabbing.
Consequently, the majority of the economically active rural inhabitants seek the opportunity to abandon the rural environment and migrate to urban areas for greener pastures as a means of escaping rural poverty and vulnerabilities.
Prof Adjei further established that researchers’ internal migration studies reveal that seven out of every ten economically active rural inhabitants exhibit an urge to leave for an urban area.
Outcomes of chronic rural poverty in Ghana have been consistent depopulation of rural areas through migration leading to significant drop of agricultural activities and agricultural sector contribution to GDP over time, which was a threat to food security in both urban and rural areas.
He anticipated that, “If no pragmatic rural poverty reduction interventions are implemented, the dream of ending poverty in all its forms by 2030, and Africa’s development agenda 2063 would be a mirage.”
The Development Geographer said prioritizing sustainable rural development that was driven by a bottom-up agenda setting and participatory rural appraisal would promote an accelerated rural transformation process.
This could support poverty reduction optimization in Africa and concurrently guarantee healthy and sustainable city development.
GNA
Edited by Kwabia Owusu-Mensah/Benjamin Mensah