Sixty-eight thousand households from 100 districts are now benefiting from Ghana�s Livelihood empowerment Against Poverty Programme (LEAP), the flagship of the National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS).
First piloted in 2008 with 1,654 beneficiary households in 21 districts, the number of beneficiaries has increased to the present level and is expected to increase to 165,000 households by 2015.
Mr. Mawutor Ablo, Director of Social Development at the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, made this known at a one-day workshop on safety network organized for journalists in Accra last Tuesday.
He said the government had made a budgetary allocation of GH�18 million for 2012 for the programme.
The NSPS represents the government�s vision of creating an all-inclusive and socially empowered society through the provision of sustainable mechanisms for the protection of person living in situations of extreme poverty and related vulnerability and exclusion.
The LEAP is aimed, among other things, at improving the basic consumption of beneficiary households by increasing school enrollment, attendance and retention of children, as well as improving on livelihood income-earned activities like block farming, among others.
He said caregivers of orphans and vulnerable children, elderly persons aged 65 and above who were without any subsistence support, as well as persons living with severe disabilities without any productive capacity, were eligible to benefit from the project.
He said the ministry had signed a memorandum of understanding with ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to facilitate access to social services and livelihood earning activities.
Mr. Ablo indicated that a common targeting mechanism (CTM) road map had been completed to identify the poor and crate a common register from which all MDAs could identify their target groups.
He said currently the MESW in collaboration with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) had started the process and was going to use the CTM to enroll the extremely poor onto the NHIS.
For his part, Mr. Lawrence Addo, the National Co-ordinator of LEAP, said guaranteeing that the transfers reached beneficiary households in the shortest time possible, on regular basis and in full was very crucial to the scheme.
He said the amount of cash transferred to beneficiaries had to be sufficient to have a significant impact on their livelihood without raising their income beyond the level that would encourage unemployment, create dependency or benefit beneficiary households excessively compared to the other income groups in the community.
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