World Leaders must step up the fight against poverty

As the whole world marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Free World Foundation is calling on world leaders to make greater efforts aimed at reducing poverty to the barest minimum if not completely eradicate it than they have made in the past by investing into the social and economic sectors of their countries.

As indicated by the former United Nations Secretary General, His Excellency, Busumuru Dr. Kofi Annan in the year 2006, on the occasion of the commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, "The campaign to make poverty history-a central moral challenge of our age-cannot remain a task for the few; it must become a calling for the many”. Indeed everyone must “STAND UP, TAKE ACTION & MAKE NOISE FOR THE MDGS”.

This year’s theme for the commemoration, "From Poverty to Decent Work: bridging the gap" indicates that, all stakeholders must help in the provision of decent work as a means of eradicating poverty in the world. Although the World Bank defines poverty as living on less than USD$1 a day, available statistics indicate that there are millions of people throughout the world who struggle to live on less than one dollar a day.

This serious and unfortunate development can be attributed mainly to the failure of governments around the world to take pragmatic actions through policies and programmes to reduce poverty among majority of the world’s population and natural factors such as floods and drought.

World leaders must see extreme poverty as a violation of human rights and must do more than they are currently doing to respect and protect this right. Indeed every man, woman, youth and child has the human right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, to food, clothing, housing, medical care and social services. These are rights bestowed on everyone by God and no one could be deprived of same. People must not loose their dignity because of poverty.

Free World Foundation is glad that the government of Ghana has launched the National Youth Policy. However, we would like to see the speedy implementation of the policy and the creation of decent employment for the teeming unemployed youth of Ghana. The National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) started by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration and being continued by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration is good but does not solve the unemployment problem of Ghana. It is good because temporarily, it provides an individual employment for two (2) years but defective because it renders that same individual redundant after the second year of employment.

Free World Foundation is calling on the government of Ghana, to as a matter of urgency, consider the future of the numerous Junior High School graduates who are not able to climb the educational ladder. It is an undeniable fact, that since 1990, when the first Basic Education Certificate Examination (B.E.C.E) was written in Ghana, more than fifty percent of pupils who write the examination each year fail to climb the educational ladder any further. Unfortunately, the then government and successive governments thereafter have failed woefully to think of the future of these pupils. If care is not taken, they will become a liability to the larger society as they may resort to some unconventional, inappropriate and indecent means of earning a livelihood. The government must therefore make policies that would cater for these pupils.