Government to support 8,000 pregnant women in 3 Northern Regions
The government is working at implementing a programme to support 8,000 pregnant women in the three northern regions with cash transfers over a three-year period.
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The programme, dubbed LEAP 1,000, to be jointly run with the USAID and UNICEF, aims at addressing maternal and infant mortality, stunting and the nutritional needs of infants up to the age of two years.
This was contained in a speech read on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama at the first ever national Social Protection Conference organised by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MGCSP) with support from the World Bank in Accra yesterday.
Dr Nii Moi Thompson, acting Director General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), read the President’s speech.
The conference was on the theme “ Social Protection: A strategic tool for poverty reduction and bridging the inequality gap in Ghana”.
LEAP expansion
President Mahama said the government was also working at ensuring that the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme was expanded to cover all extremely poor households by 2018.
He has, therefore, directed the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, to facilitate the preparation of a Social Protection Policy for approval by Cabinet.
“We cannot afford to grow while we leave other citizens behind. When we offer cash grants to an extremely poor household, it allows the household to feed their children, access health care and allows children to attend school and mothers to attend antenatal clinics” President Mahama said.
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Off season interventions
The President said the government was also in the process of finalising a Labour Intensive Public Works Policy which would allow district assemblies to use public resources to create employment opportunities and incomes for citizens during the off agricultural season
The Gender Minister Nana Oye Lithur, in an address said the ministry, with support from its development partners, had developed and implemented a National Common Targeting Mechanism to identify and select beneficiaries for social protection interventions, as well as facilitate the establishment of a national single registry for social protection.
She said despite the positive gains made through the implementation of the various social protection policies in the country, “the rate of inequality had grown with significant differences occurring between regions and between rural and urban areas.
The World Bank Country Director, Mr Yusupha B. Crookes, commended Ghana for meeting the Millennium Development Goal one (MDG1) which aims at eradicating extreme poverty and halving poverty by 2015.
He said social protection was a sure way of lifting people out of poverty.
A former Brazilian Minister for Social Development and the Fight Against Hunger, Ms Marcia Helena Carvalho Lopes, also commended Ghana for implementing social protection programmes.
She said Brazil in the last 12 years had empowered its vulnerable population through the implementation of various social intervention programmes which had helped to improve the national economy.
There were testimonials from some beneficiaries of LEAP and the Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) on how the programmes had helped to transform their finances.
Writer's email: rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh