British High Commissioner Calls on Gender Minister

The Minister for Gender, Children, and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur (Mrs), has stated that government is committed to reducing early girl child marriages, and reducing the prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Ghana. She added that, despite the challenges facing the government, government had taken giant steps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and reducing poverty in Ghana. The Minister said during a meeting with the British High Commissioner to Ghana, His Excellency (H.E) Jon Benjamin, in Accra to discuss issues of gender and social protection. She further expressed appreciation to the British Government for their support to the Ghanaian government in developing social protection policies in Ghana. She disclosed that, the British government provided the initial support which helped the ministry to undertake an evaluation of the social protection strategies. Mrs Lithur mentioned that, the Ministry had received thirty million pounds (� 30million) from the British Government to fund an expert mission to develop the Lively Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme and three million pounds (� 3million) for capacity building for LEAP and social protection. She observed that, the British government supported the Ministry in the electronic piloting of cash transfer in nine (9) districts in seven regions. The Minister added that, the Ministry had received an amount of six hundred and sixty thousand pounds (� 660,000) from the British Government to do research on gender based violence in order to help solve issues of that kind. For his part, H.E. Jon Benjamin said the British government were glad to support social protection programmes such as the LEAP in order to improve the lives of Ghanaians. He added that, they were delighted to work with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection on gender and other related issues to tackle issues in that sector. He was of the view that, social protection was a difficult subject and needed a lot of financial investment and assured the Ministry of the British government�s support in tackling its major issues.