The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has identified the Nabdam district in the Upper East Region as having the highest level of multidimensional poverty in the country.
The district scored 68 percent, according to the latest scorecards on multidimensional poverty released by the GSS.
The multidimensional poverty indicator assesses non-monetary deprivation across 13 indicators in four dimensions: living conditions (electricity, housing, assets, overcrowding, cooking fuel, water, and toilet facility), education (attendance, attainment, and school lag), health (insurance coverage and mortality), and employment (work for wage or profit).
The Nabdam district's score of 68 percent is notably 11 times higher than the lowest score of 6.3 percent recorded in the Asokwa Municipality of the Ashanti Region.
GSS revealed that 23 districts had a multidimensional poverty incidence higher than 50 percent, more than twice the national rate of 24.3 percent. In 55 districts with both rural and urban settlements, there was at least a 20.0 percentage point difference in the incidence of multidimensional poverty, with the largest disparity of 38 percentage points observed in Kwahu Afram Plains North.
Additionally, the data highlighted that in 90 percent of districts, multidimensional poverty was higher in female-headed households compared to their male-headed counterparts.
“The principal contributor to multidimensional poverty across districts is employment (206 districts) and insurance coverage (55 districts). Employment contributes between 22.9 percent and 56.7 percent across the 206 districts, while insurance coverage contributes between 23.5 percent and 29.7 percent across the 55 districts,” the GSS statement explained.
The district scorecards were based on data from the 2021 Population and Housing Census, providing insights into the proportion of the population in multidimensionally poor households, the experience of multidimensional poverty, and the district's ranking relative to others in the region and the entire country.
The scorecards also offer information on the specific areas where poor individuals in the district face the most deprivation.