SDGPP in Ghana

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

These 17 Goals build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals, while including new areas such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, peace and justice, among other priorities. The goals are interconnected – often the key to success on one will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another.

The SDGs work in the spirit of partnership and pragmatism to make the right choices now to improve life, in a sustainable way, for future generations. They provide clear guidelines and targets for all countries to adopt in accordance with their own priorities and the environmental challenges of the world at large. The SDGs are an inclusive agenda. They tackle the root causes of poverty and unite us together to make a positive change for both people and planet.

Progress:

• Significant decrease in extreme poverty.

Challenges:

• High poverty rates in rural areas and 3 northern regions;
• High income inequality between rural and urban areas.

SDG Priorities:

• Addressing regional disparities and income inequality. 

Progress:

• Substantial decline in the prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight children, with MDG targets being surpassed.

Challenges: 

• Higher level of stunting among children residing in rural areas, of mothers with no education and poor households (vs urban areas, educated mothers and wealthy households).

SDG priorities:

• Addressing regional disparities and income inequality.

Progress:

• Improved mortality rate for children under 5 years;
• HIV and AIDS prevalence decreased to 1.3 percent by 2013.

Challenges:

• Infant mortality rate (53) short of the target of 22 deaths per 1,000 live births;
• Maternal mortality rate (144) was short of global target of 54 per 100,000 live births;
• Access to antiretroviral drugs is not yet universal: it has improved for females overall but declined for pregnant women.

SDG priorities:

• Malaria remains a public health concern.

Progress:

• MDG Primary education gross enrollment and completion targets exceeded;

• Consistent improvement in youth literacy.

Challenges:

• Primary education net enrollment;
• Youth literacy rates are higher among males than females;
• Inadequate infrastructure and basic tools, equipment and materials for teaching and learning, which affect quality;
• Quality of education remains a concern at all levels, particularly in public basic schools.

SDG priorities:

• Addressing gender disparities in education;
• Ensuring adequate quality of education;
• Developing adequate infrastructure and basic tools, equipment and materials.

Progress:  

• Gender parity in primary school enrollment.

Challenges:

• Low female enrollment in secondary and tertiary education;
• No progress in achieving gender equality in productive employment;
• Low female participation in decision making.

SDG priorities:

• Tackling gender-based inequalities in terms of access to assets, employment opportunities, political processes and representation.

Progress:

• Significant gains have been made in access to improved water sources (78.6% of total population in 2013).

Challenges:

• Significant disparity between rural and urban population in access to improved water sources;

• Inadequate financial resources to carry out and maintain major water projects;
• Fast rate of urbanization which comes with increasing demand for water for domestic, industrial and commercial consumption;
• Most households are without basic sanitation, particularly in rural areas.

SDG priorities:

• Increasing the rate of population with access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation facilities;
• Strengthening enabling environment for improved Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) behavior;
• Fostering behavior change on WASH.

Challenges:

• Carbon intensive energy supply and inequitable access to energy.

SDG Priorities:

• Increasing renewable energy production;
• Promoting investments in renewable energy;
• Improving energy efficiency.

Progress:

• High GDP growth propelled by commercial oil production that pushed the country from lower income to middle income status in 2010;
• An increased proportion of people in productive employment and increasing number of new job-market entrants, particularly the youth, contributed to high employment-to-population ratio (75.6%);
• Improved wages of many groups of workers due to shifts from low-paying jobs to better paying jobs.

Challenges:

• Youth unemployment;  
• Source of growth tends to be biased in favor of extractive sector and capital-intensive sectors which do not have direct poverty reducing effect while agriculture sector keeps crawling;
• Continuing reliance on rain-fed agriculture with low levels of mechanization and limited adoption of modern agricultural techniques is a major constraint on productivity growth in agriculture;
• Ghana’s impressive growth has been driven by the low labor-absorption sectors of mining and oil, with labor-intensive manufacturing and agriculture lagging behind;
• The working poverty rate remains high in 3 northern regions;
• Low level of education of workforce restricts access to highly skilled and better remunerated jobs.

SDG Priorities:

• Ensuring the achievement of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people.

Progress:

• Mobile and cellular phone penetration has outstripped both Africa and world rates while internet subscription is almost at par with the average for Africa.

Challenges:

• Poverty endemic areas constrained by basic infrastructure that link their economic activity to urban market centers.

SDG Priorities:

• Forthcoming

Challenges:

• Increasing inequality

SDG Priorities:

• Reducing regional disparities and aligning funding to local and regional governments based on both performance and disparities

Challenges:

• A significant deficit in secure housing persists, along with the presence of urban slums;
• Inadequate long-term finance for the housing sector.

SDG Priorities:

• Focusing on more sustainable urbanization and migration policies and initiatives;

• Increasing community resilience to climate change.

Challenges:

• Food crop farmers often face the problem of marketing and price instability regarding their farm produce;
• Continuing reliance on rain-fed agriculture with low levels of mechanization and limited adoption of modern agricultural techniques is a major constraint on productivity growth in agriculture.

SDG priorities:

• Forthcoming

SDG priorities:

• Development and implementation of national climate change plans and programmes to reduce carbon emissions.

SDG Priorities:

• Forthcoming

Progress:

• Establishment of 168,910 hectares of forest plantation, mainly within degraded forest reserves, under the National Forest Plantation Development Programme 2002-2012.

Challenges:

• Depletion of forest cover continues at an alarming rate;
• Excessive logging, unsustainable agricultural practices, bushfires, cutting of fuelwood, mining and quarrying.

SDG Priorities:

• Forthcoming

SDG priorities:

• Strengthening universal participation in decision-making and decentralization of governance processes;
• Development of mechanisms for conflict prevention, management and resolution;
• Capacity development of national Human Rights institutions;
• Ensuring access to justice for the poor and disadvantaged.

Progress:

• Net ODA inflows are increasing in nominal terms.

Challenges:

• Ratio of ODA to GDP has dropped since 2009.

SDG priorities:

• Fostering multi-stakeholder collaboration among UN, government, private sector, civil society and philanthropy.