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NPP, NDC manifestos promise to complete national household register
The call by the public for the next government to expedite the Ghana National Household Registry exercise to ensure that extremely poor households are targeted for complementary services on Social Protection is beginning to yield fruits.
This is because the two main political parties in the country, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have through their manifestos outlined the need to make the register a priority in achieving its social protection goals.
A research document dubbed ‘the citizen’s manifesto on social protection programmes and policies,’ which was put together by SEND Ghana and provides public expectations on social protection programmes, indicated that the completion of the National Household Register was atop public expectations.
Register
The Ghana National Household Registry is a unit under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection with a mandate to establish a single household register from which social protection programmes will select their beneficiaries.
The programme, when it was first introduced, was well received by the public given the importance of data and its effects on policy making and planning.
The Registry, among its objectives, is expected to support inter-institutional cooperation to improve the impact of social spending and elimination of duplication.
The Registry also hopes to allow the development of accurate socioeconomic analyses on poverty to support development of plans and the design and development of specific programmes targeted to vulnerable and or low-income sectors.
According to experts, the absence of the register had a negative effect on the national distribution of cooked food and food supplies during the locked down period when the Coronavirus (COVID-19) broke out in the country.
This is because, no plan can be considered effective in the absence of accurate data.
Promise
However, while the NDC has through its manifesto promised to complete the Ghana Household Registry by the first quarter of 2022, the NPP intends to achieve that in a more elaborate manner.
The NPP intends to institutionalise and combine the Ghana National Household Registry and major Flagship Social Protection Programme databases and link them to the National Identification Card to create a “Single Registry” system.
“This will help manage both the selection, identification, and provision of social protection services and benefits to the vulnerable and disadvantaged,” the NPP manifesto said.
