This is a report on poverty mapping for the Obuasi Municipal Area and Obuasi East District. There are four major parts of this report. These two cases were chosen because of the existence of gold mining. Gold mining on the global scale has proven to be beneficial to the global economy and still has the potential to positively influence the economies and livelihoods of many in countries where gold mining takes place, most importantly in gold-rich countries. Ghana has also attracted good investment in the gold mining sector over the last three to four decades. Gold remains the leading mineral in revenue generation in the country. Recent evidence shows that revenues that Ghana obtained from gold were US$6,230 million in 2019. In the case of the Obuasi Municipality and Obuasi East District, we have inadequate understanding of the degree of poverty with clear explanation of the causal factors for socio-economic and income deprivation in such gold resource rich areas. The impact of poverty alleviation interventions by the various stakeholders over the years is not adequately explored and documented for lessons to national policy makers and especially local governments in mining communities. It is also unclear whether the nature of the impacts of mining on poverty will require the need to review legal and policy reforms in the mining sector to juxtapose policy implementation and real social and economic transformation of mine-take communities. Again, there is no clear basis for proposing tangible and far-reaching recommendations for the revival of the economies of mine-take communities with particular focus on the period before, during and after mining activities. The main objective of the assignment is to employ poverty mapping to present a poverty profile of the Obuasi Municipality and Obuasi East District. The specific objectives are to assess the nature of poverty in the Obuasi Municipality and Obuasi East District with identification of the causal factors for economic and income deprivation in such gold- resource-rich-communities; review current socio-economic potentials of the Obuasi Municipality and Obuasi East District that could be harnessed to alleviate poverty in these areas; propose pointers for pro-poor policy design for the Obuasi Municipality and Obuasi East District and make policy recommendations targeting the different categories of the poor.
