Efforts to halt seasonal migration
At the end of every farming season, many young people in the three northern regions set off to the south to look for a livelihood.
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This year at Sekoti in the Nabdam District of the Upper East Region, most of the young and middle-aged men and women are staying home and not embarking on the seasonal migration to the south.
They are participating in the Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) programme in their community.
The Government of Ghana is implementing the LIPW programme, a Social Protection scheme under the Ghana social opportunities Project (GSOP), in 49 beneficiary districts in Ghana.
The objective of the LIPW is to provide access to employment and income-earning opportunities for the rural poor during the agricultural off season.
The implementation of the LIPW involves the identification of suitably sized feeder roads, small dams and dugouts and the establishment of woodlots and fruit tree plantations, and the deliberate employment of manual construction methods to execute the works to generate more employment in order to transfer a large proportion of the investment as supplementary income into the pocket of the rural poor.
The Nabdam District Assembly in the Upper East Region is one of the beneficiary GSOP districts implementing the LIPW programme.
In October, this year, the Sekoti community was selected to participate in the district’s LIPW programme. The paramount chief of the Sekoti Traditional Area, Naba Segri Bewong, and his people donated land for the establishment of a 10-hectare mixed tree (fruits and woodlot) plantation for the community under the climate change category of the LIPW programme.
Engaging 363 community members since November 2013, the Sekoti climate change LIPW subproject is expected to provide 18,966 “person days” of employment, assuring the community members of temporary employment throughout the agricultural off season, and earnings of at least GH¢313.50 per participant by end of season.
Beneficiaries are being engaged during the dry season to carry out a number of activities including weeding, fencing, digging holes for planting, planting of seedlings, watering of seedlings, constructing fire belts and carrying out other general agronomic activities for a nominal wage of GH¢6.00 per a six-hour day of work.
A survey of the 363 participants revealed that nearly 80 per cent of them temporarily migrated south over the agricultural off season in the past but are not doing so this year because of the assurance of employment over the agricultural off season.
The primary benefit of LIPW programme as a social protection intervention is the transfer of cash to the rural poor to smoothen household consumption and avert depletion of household assets.
However, since 2012, the LIPW programmes have also chalked other clear benefits including restoring the productive capacities of socio economic infrastructure such as roads, small dams and dugouts at the community level, enabling households to register for the NHIS, maintaining children in school, improving social cohesion and as is reported above, stopping the seasonal migration to southern Ghana during the agricultural off season if implementation commences soon after the main cropping season.