RURAL POVERTY

RURAL POVERTY IS A SOCIAL PROBLEM. RECOMMENDATIONS TO MILL-S’s ADMINISTRATIONM TO IMPROVE THE CONDITIONS OF THE PEOPLE IN THE RURAL AREAS.
Development in most third world countries for that matter Ghana as an example has been hampered by abject rural poverty. To this effect development in general is nothing to write home about in Ghana since the rural folk which contribute the majority hardly make ends meet.
Poverty is defined by Darkwah1 (2005) as a social economic measure often defined both in monetary and non monetary terms. By monetary or economic terms, an individual is declared poor if he or she does not earn an internationally specified basic amount of income. In this sense poverty is assumed to be prevailing in a particular place if a majority of its people cannot earn more than (1) one dollar a day.
Non monetary measures of poverty are referred to general lack of basic necessities of livelihood. This is a situation where getting a single meal for a day becomes a major problem for the majority of the citizenry. There are low educational facilities leading to ignorance and illiteracy, poor access to roads, lack of modern health facilities, poor accommodation and high mortality rate1.
On a more general note, poverty refers to social or psychological deprivation as per the definition of Ghana poverty reduction strategy (G P R S). By the definition of G P R S, poverty refers to the constraints or inability of a large segment of the population to full advantage of the economic and social opportunities available nationally and globally to develop them.
It result from the human lack of physical and financial support to sustain livelihood and inequalities n access to control and benefit from resources.2
From the above definitions, poverty can be said to be prevailing in Ghana more especially in the rural areas. This can be attributed the fact that people living in the rural areas constitute about 70% of the total Ghanaian population. They are predominantly peasant farmers. However, these areas lack access to good road network which is a major problem since farm product cannot be transported to the urban areas. High mortality and low fertility rates, illiteracy and object ignorance, malnutrition and poor shelter are also some factors that contribute to general low living standard in the rural areas.
The nature of rural poverty in Ghana generally tends to impede or mitigate the national economic growth or development.
National development is a multidimensional phenomenon. There are many indicator of development which encompasses all spheres of human life than relying on a country’s Gross National Product (G N P) and it’s per capital income. These other indicators which are comparatively conducive for measuring a country’s level of development are the human and social indicators. Among the social development indicator are life expectancy at birth, infant mortality rate, access to safe drinking water, primary health care and education, gender empowerment, adult literacy rate, women access to education, food, security, child survival and equity in gender participation and political life
These human and social indicators which were developed by the United Nation Development Programme (U N D P) are meant to ascertain people well being which seeks to determines their level of life substances, self esteem and freedom from other people and servitude from Nature in effect by using per capital income and G N P alone cannot ascertain the real situation of a nations development. That is, a county can have a high per capital income but cannot be said to be developed because it does not translate it in to the real life situation of the rural majority since it is only concentrated in the hands of a few political or economically privileged ones.
2{National development in Ghana or economic development is by this definitions and indicators on a lower level,} 2 this is because the rural areas are attended to making living condition for its populate very difficult.3 {rural poverty in Ghana has its attendant effect on national development which include:
Unemployment_ because the rural areas are not developed and there are virtually no industries and formal employment opportunities, the rural folk are generally not employed thereby making living conditions difficult for them.
Low agricultural productivity and poor marketing system_ the mode of agriculture is peasant farming and depend on human labor which leads to poor crop yielding. The few products hardly earn them income because there are no market sources.
Moreover, high maternal mortality, high infant mortality and low fertility rate due to lack of health facilities. Even in situation where there are few facilities around, their locations are far from the majority of the people. Coupled with bad roads, pregnant women and even the sick die on the way to this health centers.
More, there is low level of education and high rate of ignorance. This situation greatly affects their thinking capacities and belief systems. Prostitution, over stressing of the few social amenities, noise, pollution and high traffic situation does not affect the rural folk alone but the general national economic development.
Many governmental administration in have made various conscious efforts to eradicate rural poverty, some of which have proved futile.
To these effects as an administrator, I wish to make the following recommendation to Mill’s ruling National Democratic Party administration as a supplement to their development agenda as a way of helping to curb the general problems and consequences of rural poverty on national development.
Firstly, there should be an increase in the amount involves in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy, According to Prof. Asenso (1984), poverty reduction has remained a compelling objective of Ghana since independence starting with the small holder_ farmers strategies of 1970, Ghana has moved through the structural Adjustment programme(S A D) and the programme of Action to Mitigate the social cause of Adjustment (P A M S C A D) in 1980 and 1990 in to its current poverty reduction strategy, (G P R S)3 though Mills administration has made G P R S its main policy, the amount of money involved and the amount disbursed to rural people as a loam for self improvement is so minimal that it does not meet its intended objectives.
For there to be a sustainable development, the loan facility should be increase with a small percentage of interest. This will be a commitment of wealth creation and poverty reduction especially in the rural areas.
Also, I will recommend for an improvement and restructuring of decentralization of local governance and good governance. According to Ayee (1995), Ghana’s move towards decentralization and good governance has been a tremendous effort in ensuring local level participation in politics.
Central government has been extended to the grass root. The P N D C law 207 established the local governance concert in 1988 leading to the establishment of 110 district assemblies. To Ayee therefore the aim of this was to allow the local people define their own problems, set o their own priorities and come out with their own suggested solutions and how to deal with these problems. According to Ayee, the financial cap citation, power allocations of the assemblies have not been the best over the years.
He contends that, the assemblies which are tasked with the provision of social infrastructure, alleviation of poverty and co coordinating the development programmes of the central government in the rural areas have little funs to undertake this assignment4, According to section 9 of the district assemblies’ common fund Act (1993(ACT455) not less than 5% of the total government revenue should be paid to district common fund. This figure sees to be woefully inadequate and needs to be upwardly adjusted.
With this adjustment, the assemblies can provide motorable roads, educational facilities thereby alleviating rural poverty. The assembly must be given a wide range of revenue generation capacity so as to set fund for rural development.
Lastly, conducive environment for N G Os in partnership with local authority in rural development and according to Ampia (1998), conducive environment will attrite donor agencies and nongovernmental organizations which will partner with local authorities to provide social services for the improvement condition of the rural folk, while private participation is recommended, the state should guide and control the activities of such private sector agencies in order not to turn in to profit oriented at the expense of rural Folk.5
In a nutshell, alleviating rural poverty folk is a multidimensional activity. The government needs to strengthen rural agricultural development, mechanized agriculture than relying on human labor and natural rainfall and also allow for local level participation in decision making and implementation. This recommendation when implemented will improve the living standard of the rural people.


REFERENCES
1. Akosual K Darkwah (2005), legon Journal of sociology, VOL.2, no 1 pgs 81 to 99
2. Republic of Ghana, National Poverty Reduction Programme (N P R P)’ Nkosu fighting poverty together for a better tomorrow’ VOL 1 no 1 may 1999.
3. Pro. Asenso Kwajo Okyere(1984), integration of poverty alleviation programme with over raw development strategies with special references to Ghana’s P A M S C A D. ISSER, university of Ghana, 1984, pgs 98 _ 112
4. Ayee, J R A (1995), financing sub govt. In Ghana: the case of district assemblies’ common fund. Regional and federal studies VOL 5 no 3 pgs 292_ 306
5. Ampia J W (1998), opportunity for the participation of development and business oriented N G Os in poverty reduction programmes at local levels that is seminar presentation on the partnership between district assemblies and N G Os in local level development. Organization by the Konrad Adenaver foundation at Sunyani 1998.
6. Thanks to Bafo of legon