The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) research on food insecurity has revealed that 2.6 million (eight per cent) Ghanaians, remained nutritionally vulnerable, meaning food consumption is minimally adequate and nutritionally weak among them.
The Mobile Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (mVAM) Food Insecurity Report launched in Accra yesterday, also indicated over 335,000 (one per cent) of Ghanaians experienced a high risk of hunger malnutrition.
Meanwhile, 91 per cent, representing 29.8 million of the Ghanaian population have acceptable food consumption, thus, a 35.5 or more Food Consumption Score (FCS).
This meant that, nine in 10 households have acceptable food consumption level, while six out of 100 households (6.4 per cent) fall within poor (0-21 FCS), or borderline (21.5-35 FCS) category.
The food consumption score (FCS) is a composite score based on household’s dietary diversity, food consumption frequency and relative nutritional value of different food groups consumed in the last days prior to the survey.
The mVAM data stated that nearly 40 per cent of the households in the Northern belt made up of Northern, North East, Upper East and Upper West regions have poor or borderline food consumption rate.
This is a sharp contrast to the 95 per cent, recorded by 10 other regions, including Volta, Ahafo, Bono, Ashanti, Bono East, Oti, Eastern, Greater Accra, Western North and Central regions.
Central, Greater Accra, Oti and Western North regions, however, demonstrated near-universal acceptable food consumption with all exceeding 99 per cent.
Demography, coping strategy
The report also highlighted that one in every three (32.3 per cent) households adopted reduced livelihood strategies classified as high coping or medium coping.
Also, five in 100 households (4.5 per cent) adopts reduced livelihood strategies classified as high coping indicating a high stress level in managing food consumption.
Coping strategies refer to the behaviours and actions households adopt when they face food shortages or lack sufficient resources to purchase food.
This is categorised as stress (sell non-productive assets, spend savings, borrow money, reduce utilities), crisis (sell productive assets, cut health expenses, withdraw children from school) and emergency (sell house or land, beg or scavenge, engage in high-risk jobs such as theft and prostitution).
Using sex demography, the report indicated that over seven per cent of households headed by males have food consumption level classified as poor (0.9 per cent) and borderline (6.3 per cent), which is more than two percentage points higher than households headed by females (4.6 per cent).
For settlement demography, about 11 per cent of rural households are classified as poor and borderline compared to four per cent among urban households.
With educational demography, vulnerability to food insecurity is highest among households with heads having no education, where almost a quarter (23.4 per cent) is classified as having poor and borderline food consumption.
This is about 10 times higher than households headed by persons with tertiary education (2.1 per cent).
Implication
Speaking at the event, the Government Statistician, Dr Alhassan Iddrisu, said the outcome meant, targeting must improve, with focus on high-risk regions and vulnerable groups with precision.
“Ghana is not facing a nationwide food crisis, but we are confronting deep, concentrated and rising vulnerabilities that demand attention.
The real danger is not just what the data shows today.
The real danger is what happens if we delay, if we generalise and if we fail to act with precision,” he said.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh