Ghana has during the nineties experiences a variety of changes both in the economic conditions faced by the country and the political arena. While the world market prices on gold and cocoa, Ghana's two main export commodities, have declined, there has been a steady, although not high, growth rate. At the same time poverty has fallen from just over 50 per cent to just below 40 per cent (Ghana Statistical Service (2000a)). This decrease in poverty has, however, not been uniformly distributed across the country. Most of the improvements in living standards have taken place in the southern parts of Ghana, while the three northern regions, Northern, Upper West and Upper East, have experienced virtually no improvements in the condition and even some increases in poverty. In the political field Ghana recently held her third democratic election, which resulted in a peaceful change of government from the old ruling party of NDC to the NPP and joined HIPC.

All of these developments make a renewed effort to understand the distribution and determinants of poverty even more worthwhile than they would otherwise be. Without a good understanding of how poverty has changed and what determines who is poor or not we cannot hope to design appropriate policies and may end up making matters worse. Hence, the purpose of this monograph is to analyse the developments in poverty and welfare that Ghana has experienced during the nineties. By doing this we hope to fill a gap in the literature, since there is relatively little recent work on poverty in Ghana. This work is mainly directed towards people working either directly or indirectly with poverty related issues in Ghana, including the government, civil servants, NGOs, international organisations and the civil society of Ghana.