Poverty, vulnerability and exclusion in Ghana: A socially-responsive methodological approach

Abstract

In identifying vulnerabilities that predispose people to chronic poverty and/or exclusion, causal factors to determine the vulnerable groups have always been a challenge to the change agent's concerned. It is only in rare cases that people succeed in teasing out important causal issues. This is rather disturbing as policy will neither be coherent nor proactive without a clear acknowledgement and appreciation of the adversities and challenges responsible for causing and/or perpetuating chronic poverty. In particular, those at risk are likely to be missed out if the causal factors are not properly identified. There is high diversity in the issues underlying vulnerability and exclusion. Using a socially-responsive methodology which includes such criteria as incidence, severity, and marginalisation, poverty issues could be captured in a broader context to enable wider inclusion of vulnerable and excluded groups in society. The paper argues that a deployable and acceptable methodology will necessarily entail trade-offs. In particular, it takes account of existing gaps in the identification of the poor, vulnerable and excluded.