Ghana is on track to be the first country in Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for halving poverty and hunger by 2015.

Between 1990 and 2004, Ghana outperformed all other countries worldwide, reducing hunger by 75 percent.

"Ghana's progress has been remarkable," says Melinda Gates, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, "especially when you consider the devastating drought, dwindling harvests and rising poverty that Ghana experienced in the mid-1980s."

The West African nation is also making great strides to reduce the number of people living in poverty.

How did they do it?

Mrs. Gates wrote on the foundation's website:

In Ghana, as in many parts of the developing world, the poorest people get their income by farming small plots of land. So finding ways to help these farmers produce more food and get it to market is a critical element in reducing poverty and hunger. That's also the goal of the foundation's agricultural development initiative, which we launched in 2006.

During the past 25 years, Ghana's increased government investments in agriculture have led to amazing results…

(READ more of the column at GatesFoundation.org)