Poverty in Ghana declined in 2024 to 25.9%, the International Monetary Fund has disclosed.
This was after it reached 26.4% in 2023.
The population living in extreme poverty is measured at the international poverty line of US$2.15 per day.
The Fund said the drop in poverty was mainly reflected the improved growth outturn in 2024—especially in services and to a lesser extent in agriculture—and the authorities’ continued efforts to expand the coverage of and budgeted resources for Ghana’s social protection programme.
This included the four highly-targeted programmes covered by the programme conditionality: the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP), the Capitation Grant, and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
The Fund stated in its 4th Review Under the Economic Credit Facility Arrangement with Ghana that the government is redoubling efforts to expand social spending and shorten delays in releasing budgeted funds to beneficiaries.
The 2025 Budget increased the allocation for social protection programme by 0.34 percentage points to 0.91% of Gross Domestic Product.
With the World Bank support, the IMF stated that the Ghanaian authorities are working to improve the targeting of the LEAP cash transfer programme, and to increase the number of beneficiary households from 350,000 to 400,000 by end-September 2025, while preserving the real value of the benefits with automatic indexation to inflation.
The 2025 Ghana Budget increased budgetary allocations to the GSFP, the NHIS and the Capitation Grant.
According to the Bretton Wood ‘s institution, this funding would support basic education for the poor, compensate for the impact of high food inflation, allow purchases of essential vaccines and medicines, and implement new initiatives under the NHIS.
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