The Japanese Social Development Fund Project has launched ‘rural income generation of the targeted poor’, a pilot project in Bolgatanga with the aim to support some 3,000 households in the Upper East Region.
Eight out of the thirteen District Assemblies in the region, namely: Builsa North, Builsa South, Bawku West, Garu-Tempane, Nabdam, Talensi, Bongo and Kassena-Nankana West would benefit from this pilot phase to support at least 3,000 of the poorest households, to improve their existing business activities or start new income generation activities.
These individuals would also receive management training to acquire entrepreneurial skills over a 3-year period.
Mr. Charles K. Dondien, Director of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, said the project was based on four thematic areas; environmental sanitation, decentralization and empowerment of District Assemblies, small and micro-enterprises development and social housing.
According to him, the history of the project dated back to October 2011, when the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development started the implementation of the Labour Intensive Public Works programme under the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP), in 49 district assemblies throughout the country.
Mr. Dondien explained that the Ministry in 2012, made a request to the World Bank for support for a complementary income earning facility to improve the performance of the micro enterprises, and thereby ensure a sustainable income base for these deprived persons.
He said unfortunately, the programme design of GSOP did could not address the issue of sustainability of micro enterprise, and therefore the World Bank linked the Ministry to the JSDP which needed to be piloted.
The Director further explained that the Ministry subsequently selected the Upper East Region for the pilot project in view of its extreme poverty level. After the region was selected, the beneficiary district assemblies were engaged in stakeholder consultations to enable the JSDP to prepare the project design in 2013.
He said final approvals from the World Bank and the Japanese Government were obtained by the middle of 2014 for a total grant of U$ 3 million of the implementation of the pilot project in this project.
The main objective of the project according to the Director was to support the poorest of the poor to enable them establish sustainable income generation activities through capacity building of individual entrepreneurs, association of entrepreneurs and to support service providers.
He hinted lessons learnt from this pilot project would help scale up income generation activities of the poorest of the poor throughout the remaining Upper West and Northern Regions. Mr. James Zuugah Tiigah, Upper East Regional Minister, lauded idea of selecting the region for the pilot project, and charged the District Chief Executives of the beneficiary assemblies to ensure they gave the project the needed support it deserved.
<<Print>>