Persistent Poverty in Ghanas Upper East

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Persistent Poverty in Ghanas Upper East
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Ghanas Upper East Losing out in Poverty Reduction

• Between 1992 and 1999 national poverty rates in
  Ghana had dropped from 52 to 40. (Source 2
  Ghana Living Standards Surveys)
• But poverty in the Upper East had increased.
• 97.3 of its food producers were poor in 1999
  compared with 66 in 1992
• Most UE households are food producers
• Poverty in UE is widespread severe and persistent.

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Background Context of Upper East

• Dry Sudan Savannah (1 rainy season of c. 5
  months)
• Physically isolated from rest of Ghana - poor
  roads.
• But some access to southern Ghanaian markets and
  cross border markets in Burkina Faso.
• History of gradual adoption of food cash crops
  (1950s to now)
• Little non-agricultural investment, so few
  off-farm employment/income opportunities (though
  some)
• Historically low levels of state spending in the
  Region
• Densely settled

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The Research

• Based on quantitative and qualitative data
  gathered in 1975 and 1989
• From six contingent communities (Tempane-
  Gagbiri)
• Households matched between 2 study years
• Longitudinal study with time difference of 14
  years
• Qualitative data ethnographic and interview

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How did the research define poverty ?

• Goats sheep and cattle are most important
  household assets
• Other assets include zinc roofs and bicycles (not
  many)
• Points values assigned to these assets to
  construct livestock status indicator and asset
  status indicator
• Significant economic inequality showed in both
  livestock status and asset status
• In both 1975 and 1989 the top 10 households had
  mean livestock points 22 times greater than the
  bottom 50

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Poverty Categories

• Small minority were Secure households - those
  with 35 livestock points and over.
• Most households - the Vulnerable - have livestock
  points between 1.1 and 35
• The Destitute, a small but growing group, are
  households with 1 livestock points or less. They
  own less than 5 hens.

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Perceived Poverty Trends 1975 to 1989

• Increased concern with food production
• Things getting worse
• Economic reforms from 1984 onwards include
  removal of fertiliser subsidy
• Lower rainfall and poorer soil fertility
• too poor to farm

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Measured poverty trends 1975 to 1989
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Incomes from a limited number of cash crops
adjusted against national inflation.
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Measured Poverty Trends 1975 to 1989

• Increase in destitute households
• Producing a slight decrease in proportions in
  secure and vulnerable groups
• Lower levels of livestock
• Rise in cash crop incomes (but not necessarily
  overall incomes)
• Assets static or increased

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Poverty Dynamics

• Comparing the poverty status of the matched
  households in the 2 study years

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Poverty Dynamics 1975 to 1989Falling Off and
Getting On

• Total matched households 113
• In 1989, 6 out of 10 households were in the same
  poverty status as in 1975
• 38 had changed poverty category
• 15 moved up and 28 moved down
• Of the 20 households that were secure in 1975,
  only six remained secure in 1989
• Of the 22 households that were destitute in 1989,
  17 had fallen into destitution since 1975

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Key Questions

• What processes underlie these poverty
  trajectories?
• Why do some households fall into destitution?
• How are some are able to follow successful
  strategies of accumulation and thus remain
  relatively secure?

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Key Findings

• Household size linked to wealth
• Vulnerability to shocks
• A minority of economically secure households have
  been able to pursue limited accumulation
  strategies
• A structural bifurcation exists between this
  minority and the majority of households that have
  stabilized dynamically around exceedingly low
  levels of poverty
• The secure who are striving to accumulate make
  use of positive feed-back loops. The destitute
  and many of the vulnerable are caught in poverty
  traps negative feedback loops

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The importance of household size and male labour

• Positive relationship between greater wealth and
  larger household size.
• No particular aspect of household composition is
  significant.
• The dependency ratios of wealthier households are
  no better than those of poorer households.
• The absolute size of household and the number of
  men, married women and adult women are positively
  associated with increased economic security.
• The poorest lack labor, the richest have lots of
  labor

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How do households come to be large or small?

• Regionally specific features of household
  structure are very important
• Household size is linked to initial endowments
  and is socially managed.
• Successful household heads seek to attract and
  retain household members in a variety of ways
• Members drain away from less successful
  households
• For example managing migration

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How migration effects poverty

• Younger men went away on labor migration from
  poorer and richer, smaller and larger
  households., but effects on wellbeing differed.
• In larger, more well-resourced households, a
  succession of men could leave on labor migration
  and return without stripping the household of
  male family labor.
• Successful household heads helped them to
  re-start farming and set up enterprises when they
  returned
• In smaller, poorer households, labor migrants
  tended to stay away longer and often came back to
  great poverty
• Their absence made small households very
  vulnerable, farming became difficult, and there
  was less incentive to return.
• A decision by a son or brother to leave from a
  poor household was both a result of poverty and a
  cause of it.

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Vulnerability to Shocks

• Downward spirals into destitution occurred when
  the resource endowments of households were
  insufficient to deal with fairly ordinary shocks
  such as illness, or poor harvest
• Ill elderly or disabled heads lacking in male
  labor have no margin to meet these shocks.
• Vulnerable households may be continuing to farm
  only by hiring themselves out in exchange for
  seeds or plowing, by using remittances, or by
  asset stripping.
• Some of the destitute are young household heads
  who lack resources to farm properly and only get
  such resources by farming for others. Their lack
  of kinship capital can be catastrophic.

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Searching for SecurityAccumulation Strategies

• The secure constitute a minority of households
  whose economic and social strategies diverge from
  the majority of the population their search for
  security includes the aspiration to accumulate
• These strategies centre on farming, but also make
  use of formal employment or trading or businesses
  as a source of farming capital
• They are all bullock plow farmers
• They grow extensive food cash crops and either
  adopted plow technology early, or had established
  links with state or NGO schemes that provided
  credit for cash crop inputs.

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Positive and Negative Feedback Loops

• The bifurcation between a few who can aspire to
  accumulate and those that adopt low risk
  strategies is characterised by
• Positive feedback loops for the few.
• Negative feedback loops poverty
  traps - for the many.

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Poverty TrapsNegative Feedback Loops

• Low asset endowment reduces farming capacity,
  cant build up assets
• Shocks illness or climate use up small store
  of assets also needed for farming
• Informal credit for farming inputs is paid back
  in labor , reducing labor for own farming
• Poor households cant attract members, lack labor,
  cant farm enough
• Migration from poor households reduces available
  labor and increases vulnerability and poverty of
  household.

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Positive Feedback Loops

• Adopt new agricultural technology early (on
  credit, if possible)
• Grow more cash crops, use more labour parties,
  reinvest in farming
• Manipulate household size and manage household
  labour positively
• Access public employment
• By Investing in education
• By using political links

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Implications for Policy

• Poverty pervasive and critically related to poor
  health, poor resource endowments and poor local
  diversification opportunities
• Improve health services
• Promote rural development
• Promote appropriate small scale agricultural
  technology improvements
• Establish accessible credit

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