The Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said that Ghana's dream to eradicate poverty will remain a mirage unless the poor are actively involved in the economic growth process. "Our current growth process is unplanned; it is based on the resources of the few rich and relies heavily on the devices of free markets to distribute the benefits of growth. "In the process, the benefits of economic growth have bypassed large sections of the population and benefited a tiny fraction," Mr. Kofi Asamoah, Secretary General of the TUC said at the launch of the ‘2009 Stand Up Take Action Against Poverty Campaign' spearheaded by the Ghana Millennium Development Goals/Ghana Coalition Against Poverty Campaign Coalition. Delivering a trades union position on poverty at the event in Accra last week, he noted that the poor - defined as the number of people who live on less than GH¢1.4 a day - continue to be around because the economic growth agenda of the nation has failed to make use of the services of the poor. By the last count in 2005/2006, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) estimated that 28.5 percent of the population, representing 6.0 million Ghanaians, is living in poverty. In the rural areas, four out of every 10 Ghanaians are classified as poor. In the Northern part of the country, about 60 percent of inhabitants are considered as poor. Mr. Asamoah said the only way the poor can participate in the growth-generating process is if growth is based on the most abundant resources of the poor - which is their labour. He therefore debunked the reasoning of schools of thought that seek refuge in high economic growth to eliminate poverty by adding that distribution of economic growth must necessarily accompany the process, whereby the poor are made to disproportionately benefit from process. He buttressed his point by quoting from a World Bank study that showed inequality in Ghana rose from 0.38 percent (Gini index) in 1999 to 0.39 percent in 2006, the same period the incidence of poverty was supposed to have declined from 39.5 percent to 28.5 percent. According to the World Bank, the rise in inequality reduced the poverty reduction impact of economic growth by almost three percent over the period. In a speech read of her behalf, Government Statistician Dr. Grace Bediako identified areas that require urgent attention as rural savannah and rural forest areas where extreme poverty (those who live on less than GH¢0.8 per day) are still very high. "There is therefore need to intervene in these areas if we are to reduce poverty significantly to achieve Goal 1 of the millennium development goals (MDGs), which is halving poverty by 2015. "Interventions such as the modernisation of agriculture as enshrined in the National Development Plan must be vigorously pursued to reduce poverty among those population groups - and subsequently the whole country," she added. Source: Business & Financial Times