World Bank President visits Ghana

• Posted on October 16, 2015
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim will visit Ghana tomorrow, Friday October 16 to participate in high-level talks and launch a report on poverty in Africa.

He will also highlight Ghana’s progress toward ending extreme poverty and commemorate End Poverty Day.

The president’s visit to Accra forms part of several activities this week that focus on ending extreme poverty by 2030.

The trip comes shortly after the release of a World Bank report earlier this month that projects for the first time that the percentage of people living in extreme poverty around the world will fall below 10 percent in 2015 to 9.6 percent.

The Bank estimates that 702 million people still live in extreme poverty today around the world.

Several African countries have seen significant successes in reducing extreme poverty, including Ghana, which reduced extreme poverty to 25.2 percent in 2005/06 from 47.3 percent in 1991/92. But the region as a whole lags behind the rest of the world in progressing toward the goal.

Sub-Saharan poverty fell from an estimated 56 percent in 1990 to a projected 35 percent in 2015, according to the latest World Bank estimates, which are based on an extreme poverty line of $1.90 a day.

Rapid population growth remains a key factor blunting progress in many countries.

During the first part of his visit, Dr. Kim will be joined by President John Dramani Mahama, development partners, as well as civil society leaders, private sector representatives and student leaders to observe End Poverty Day in Jamestown, Accra, where they will together launch a regional flagship report- Poverty in a Rising Africa.

The report explores whether enough of the continent’s citizens are sharing in Africa’s rise, analyzes challenges related to poverty data and provides an update on poverty and other trends related to human well-being.

Kim will also participate in a Shared Prosperity Forum in the afternoon at the University of Ghana, Legon, along with government ministers from Africa, civil society and private sector leaders to share thoughts on what it will take to end extreme poverty in Africa and the rest of the world by 2030.

Ghana’s own path toward prosperity will be among the topics to be discussed.

The World Bank’s current portfolio for Sub-Saharan Africa consists of $11.6 billion for 103 projects.

This includes $1.2 billion in IBRD loans and $10.4 billion in IDA commitments.

The leading sectors are public administration, law and justice, health transportation and other social services.

A business desk report