Accra, Ghana//-The World Bank’s funded Ghana Productive Safety Net Project (GPSNP) has achieved key milestones in its operational regions of the West African country.
This came to light at a day’s Learning Event to close out the project which was implemented since 2018 and closes in December 2022.
Speaking at the event, Collins Augustine Ntim, a Deputy Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development who read a speech for the sector minister, Dan Botwe said: “Since 2019, the GPSNP, has achieved key milestones”.
GPSNP’s achievements so far
According to him, the government through the project has provided short-term employment to over 34,500 poor persons through Labour-Intensive Public Works (LIPW) which offers temporary wage-earning opportunities during the agricultural off-season to poor households in Ghana.
Mr Botwe also disclosed that the GPSNP linked close to 16,000 beneficiaries to ongoing government’s flagship agriculture programmes such as Planting for Exports and Rural Development (PERD).
The $60 million funded World Bank project he added distributed 11.9 million cashew, oil palm and coconut seedlings in support of the government’s PERD) programme.
The government through the project disbursed an amount of GHS 100.33 million to project beneficiaries as grants for IGA start up and wages for services provided.
Furthermore, Mr Botwe said the project reached out to 20,354 beneficiaries under the Productive Inclusion (PI) component to start their own micro enterprises also known as income generating activities.
It again created 352 assets in the form of feeder roads, small earth dams and climate change interventions in 405 communities in 80 districts across the country.
On her part, the Minister Designate of the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Madam Lariba Zuweira Abudu disclosed the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) which is a cash transfer programme introduced by the Government of Ghana (GoG) in 2008, for extremely poor and vulnerable households now covers 345,021 beneficiary households.
This she said translated to 1,520,450 individuals out of the 2.4 million extreme poor people in the country.
Madam Abudu added that the country’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has an active membership of about 13 million Ghanaians including over 1.4 million indigenes comprising prison inmates, LEAP beneficiaries, among others.
She was quick further stated that; “the Ghana National Household Registry (GNHR) tasked to assist social protection programs to identify, prioritize, and select households living in vulnerable conditions has completed household data collection in five regions- North-East, Savannah, Northern, Upper East, Upper West. Data collection in Central, Volta and Oti regions are currently ongoing”.
Also, the Single Window Citizens Engagement Service (SWCES)-Helpline of Hope (0800, 800, 800/0800,900,900) has since the inception of GPSNP representing a 92% case resolution rate”.
Madam Abudu however observed that there are still groups of people who have been left and for whom social protection is still not a reality.
These groups according to her include vulnerable workers in the informal sector such as child beggars, street vendors and hawkers who have little or no protection in case of sickness, accidents, or pregnancy.
Others are the thousands of child labourers whose families are unable to afford the indirect costs of sending them to school.
Robust and digitized system for social protection
Touching on the theme of the event-“Leveraging on Digitisation for Effective Social Protection Delivery-The Government Agenda”, Madam Abudu believes that having a robust and digitized system for social protection delivery really helps in the reduction of poverty and inequality.
“We therefore need to invest more and leverage on digitization for effective social protection delivery to close existing coverage gaps and reduce poverty, vulnerability and inequality”.
The Minister Designate was emphatic that digitizing social protection delivery has the potential to reduce fragmented, isolated social protection interventions thereby linking beneficiaries of social protection invention to other services and support.
After more than two decades of economic growth under the fourth republic, Ghana can innovate and once again be the pacesetter in the sub-Sahara region in ensuring that social protection delivery is digitized across all sectors of the Ghanaian economy.
Madam Abudu said her ministry with support from the World Bank has already taken the lead in line with this by implementing the digital grievance redress mechanism.
The SWCES -helpline of Hope ensures transparency, and accountability by creating a verified complaints and grievance mechanism for social protection programs.
“Various digital options including mobile money payments are also being explored by the ministry as payment options for LEAP beneficiaries to supplement the existing E-zwich method payment. All these electronic payments delivery systems improve transparency and accountability and reduce leakage compared with cash-transfer manual mechanisms.
Boosting the Ghana’s social protection agenda
The World Bank Country for Ghana, Pierre Laporte noted that the Ghana Productive Safety Net Project (GPSNP), a four-year IDA-financed project has been instrumental in boosting the government of Ghana’s social protection agenda.
“As you know, the World Bank takes a keen interest in social protection as it is at the heart of our work, evidenced by our twin goals-to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity”, he stated.
Since 2010, the World Bank has consistently supported the Government of Ghana in its efforts to protect the poor and boost economic growth.
These Mr Laporte mentioned include the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) with $138.6 million; subsequently the GPSNP with $60 million, and currently GPSNP 2 with $100 million initiated in 2022 and closing in 2025.
These interventions he noted have cumulatively reached over 2 million poor and vulnerable Ghanaians.
Further support
Mr Laporte also announced that through a request from the Ministry of Finance, the World Bank would further support the government with additional financing to the GPSNP 2, which would aid in increasing LEAP benefits and coverage as well as expanding to reach other important social protection programs.
“These efforts are key to aid us in making gains in poverty alleviation and economic growth, despite setbacks in the agenda, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As you know, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the existing GPSNP programs and systems were critical as these were used to speedily identify poor and vulnerable people; and swiftly transfer cash were successfully delivered to those in need as well as the existence of the Single Window Citizens Engagement Services through which individuals were able to call and seek assistance”.
Additionally, phone surveys undertaken during and after the peak of the pandemic provided evidence that the existing social protection systems were effective in supporting the poor and vulnerable.
