National Household Registry to be launched next week

The first-ever National Household Registry in West Africa is to be launched in Accra next week.

The registry will provide a single database of extremely poor households in the country.

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, who announced this at the final validation workshop of the National Social Protection Policy in Accra Tuesday, said the registry would be used for all social protection programmes in the country to target beneficiaries of such programmes.

The validation workshop was to create a forum for a wider stakeholder review of the draft policy in order to solicit new ideas, suggestions and recommendations for its completion.

The goal of the policy is to have a well-coordinated, inter-sectoral social protection system to ensure effective implementation and coordination, and enable people to live in dignity through income support, livelihood empowerment and improved systems of basic services.

Social protection and development

According to Nana Oye, social protection had become an effective and efficient tool for addressing poverty, vulnerability and exclusion all over the world.

The sixth Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) shows that extreme poverty has reduced from 16.5 per cent in 2005/2006 to 8.4 per cent in 2012/2013.

According to Nana Oye, a number of social intervention programmes by the government had made that possible.

The Chief of Social Policy, UNICEF Ghana, Ms Sarah Hague, in a statement, said the policy would help the country to fulfil its constitutional duty to create a more equitable and poverty-free nation.

“People are not poor from deliberate choice. No one wants to live in poverty, lacking dignity and opportunity. No man wants to struggle to feed his children. No woman wants to have to send their children to labour instead of to learn. If people find themselves in this situation, it is because, the nation, has failed to provide them the right protection to survive and the opportunities to grow and excel,” she added.

Ms Hague, therefore, called on governments to strive to protect, promote and transform the lives of all its citizens not only by providing handouts for the few, but achieve their best through a cohesive system that would ensure that no one had to experience poverty.

Interventions

The ActionAid-Ghana Country Director, Mr Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, in a presentation on the “Role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisation (CSOs) in social protection”, said the 1992 Constitution enjoined governments to implement social protection policies and programmes aimed at redressing social, economic and educational imbalances in the country.

He said NGOs and CSOs could play complementary and other roles to support the government to ensure that social protection thrived in the country.

A Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), Dr Isaac Osei Akoto, in a presentation on ‘Social protection and poverty reduction: Generating the evidence through evaluations,’ said he was hopeful that the policy, when it came into force, would help address the gaps in the implementation, coordination and monitoring of the special protection programmes in the country.

Benefits of social protection

A consultant on the Social Protection Policy, Dr Esther Ofei Aboagye, who gave highlights on what the policy entailed, said it would help create a link between social protection and sustainable development in the country.

The acting Director of Social Protection of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mr Richard Adjetey, in a welcome address, said social protection was essential to achieving sustainable development.

The Head of the Centre for Social Policy Studies of the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Ellen Bortei-Doku Aryeetey, who chaired the workshop, said Ghana as a country had come far in its implementation of social protection.

Writer's email: rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh