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SYMPOSIUM ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL PROTECTION

TOPIC: THE GHANA LIVELIHOOD EMPOWERMENT AGAINST POVERTY (LEAP) PROGRAMME,

A Case Study of Social Protection interventionVENUE:- NIAMEY, NIGERDATE:- 19th & 20th September, 2014

Presenter:

HON. JOHN ALEXANDER ACKON (DEPUTY MINISTER - Gender, Children & Social

Protection)

Our Target Groups

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Children (38%) Women (51%) Men (48.7%)

People with disabilities (3%)

Elderly (6.7%) Youth (20%)

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OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION

Definition and Background of Social Protection:

The LEAP ProgrammeImplementation and coverageTargeting ProcessPayment arrangementsAchievementsChallengesWay forwardConclusion

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Back Definition of Social Protection

Ghana’s Social Protection Strategy defines social protection as: “a set of transfers and services that help individuals and households confront risk and adversity (including emergencies), and ensure a minimum standard of dignity and well-being throughout the life-cycle.” The definition also adds that, a concept of “social protection for children which focuses on the objectives of systematically protecting and ensuring the rights of all children and women, achieving gender equality, and reducing child poverty.

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SOME SOCIAL PROTECTION INTERVENTIONS IN GHANA;

Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) cash

transfer programme

Labour Intensive Public Works

The Exempt Category under the National Health

Insurance Scheme

Pro-Poor interventions for poor peasant farmers’

including Block Farming

Free School Uniform and Exercise books for Public Basic

Schools

School Feeding Programme

Education Capitation Grant

Local Enterprise and Skills Development Programme

(LESDEP)

Ghana Youth Employment and Enterprise Development

Programme

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BACKGROUND OF LEAP

Livelihood Empowerment Against

Poverty (LEAP) cash transfer

programme

Labour Intensive Public Works

The Exempt Category under the

National Health Insurance Scheme

Pro-Poor interventions for poor

peasant farmers’ including Block

Farming

Free School Uniform and Exercise

books for Public Basic Schools

School Feeding Programme

Education Capitation Grant

Local Enterprise and Skills

Development Programme (LESDEP)

Ghana Youth Employment and

Enterprise Development Programme

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BACKGROUND OF LEAP (cont’d)

The LEAP Programme provides cash transfers to:• Empower extremely poor

households• Help them provide for their

basic needs• Enable them to LEAP out of

extreme poverty

LEAP targets are the following;i. Orphans and Vulnerable

Children and their caregivers

ii. The elderly poor who are 65 years +

iii. Persons with severe disabilities without productive capacity

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OBJECTIVES OF LEAP

Broad Objective of LEAP The broad objective of the LEAP Program is to reduce

poverty by increasing consumption and promoting access to services and opportunities among the extreme poor and vulnerable.

Specific Objectivesi. To improve basic household consumption and nutrition among

children below 2 yearsii. To increase access to health care services among children

below 5 yearsiii. To increase basic school enrollment, attendance and retention

of beneficiary childreniv. To facilitate access to complementary services (such as

welfare, livelihoods

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Implementation and Coverage

The LEAP programme is being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and managed the Ministry of Gender, Children & Social Protection (MoGCSP)  

The programme commenced in 2008 with 1,654 household beneficiaries in 21 selected districts and currently covers 99 districts nation-wide with the total number of household beneficiaries standing at over 72,000 (June, 2014)

Governance Structure

• LEAP programme is a community driven programme because of the participation at the grass root level.

• The Community LEAP implementation committee (CLIC ) is the grass root structure that plays an active role in the implementation of the cash grant programme.

• The CLIC assist in data collection and the identification of potential beneficiary house holds (HH) in the community.

• The CLIC also assist in the mobilisation of beneficiaries at the time of cash payments.

• Furthermore the CLIC helps in the monitoring on the usage of the cash grant etc.

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TARGETING

Geographicalselection

•Regions, Districts & Communities using poverty rankings from GSS•Allocate to Region – Rank Districts - Rank communities

Community Base Targeting •Community committees complete CBT Form for household selection

Proxy Means Testing •Collecting Proxy Means Test (PMT) Data using Questionnaire by enumerators•PMT Ranking - Household below cut-off selected

TARGETING

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FUNDING OF LEAP

Government of Ghana- Grant and Non-Grant

UK Government - through DFID-Grant and Non-grant support & technical Assitance

The World Bank- Non-grant support

UNICEF - Technical Assistance

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PAYMENT PROCESSES

Generate data on beneficiaries for Payment

• Details of beneficiaries households & amounts due them is generated from the MIS

Transfers to Payment Service Providers •Amounts and details are sent to Payment Service Providers -GH Post , MTN, GhiPPS & AYA

Community Mobilization •Dist. Social Welfare Officers inform Community committee members of payment dates•Community committee inform & mobilizes beneficiaries for payment

Payments •Payment is effected•Reconciliation is done

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INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT

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LEAP MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE

Min. of Gender, Children & Social Protection

Department of Social Welfare

LEAP Management Unit

Managing Ministry

Managing Team within Department of Social Welfare

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LEAP MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE

REGIONAL LEVEL

DISTRICT LEVEL

COMMUNITY LEVEL

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ACHIEVEMENTS

Number of beneficiary households has increased from initial 1654 in twenty-one(21) districts in 2008 to 72,780 beneficiary households in ninety-nine (99) districts as at June, 2014

Tripling of household grant since July, 2012 from an average of GH₵12.00 to GH₵36.00

LEAP grants arrears of beneficiaries have all been cleared to date

Every GH¢1 to GH¢2.5 by ‘local multiplier’ effect

Improvement in household consumption of beneficiaries

Increase school attendance -Basic & Secondary

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ACHIEVEMENTS (cont’d)

Over 90% LEAP beneficiary households have been enrolled onto NHIS and are accessing health care.

Piloted electronic payments in 9 pilot districts

Upgrading of the Management Information System (MIS)

A baseline and mid term impact evaluation of the programme was conducted by the North Carolina University(USA)/ISSER - UG

Development & distribution of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials

Implementation of the Monitoring and Evaluation framework

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CHALLENGE

Weak coordination of LEAP with other complementary services to facilitate graduation and exit like;

School Feeding ProgramCapitation GrantDistribution of School UniformsDistribution of School textbooks and exercise

booksLabour Intensive Public Works (LIPW)MASLOCLESDEPGYEEDA etc.

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THE WAY FORWARD

Expansion and targeting of 50,000 additional households on the programme by 2015

Up scale and roll out Electronic payment system

Pilot Case Management module devlopedDevelop and pilot of Electronic Data Collection

tools in progressUndertake Independent Monitoring Checks

(IMC)To strengthen systems using independent

verifier

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THE WAY FORWARD (cont’d)

• Introduction of LEAP 1,000 (for pregnant mothers and children <1year in 10 selected districts of the Northern and Upper East regions)

• The establishment of the National Targeting System under the MoGCSP to create the Ghana National Household Registry (Single Registry Database) from which LEAP and other Social Protection programmes can select their target beneficiaries

• Implement the process of graduating beneficiaries

• Coordination of all complementary services

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CONCLUSION

Globally, Social protection is now recognized as an important tool for poverty reduction in developing and under developed countries

The government of Ghana since the 1990s until recently has implemented various social protection interventions to reduce poverty

With the establishment of Ghana’s Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, initially the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, Government’s focus is to co-ordinate these interventions to ensure that they reach the needy or target groups

This requires the release of adequate funds and in a timely manner, building capacity and logistics for implementing bodies to deliver on their mandate

Finally, the implementation of the Ghana LEAP programme is a clear evidence of how extreme poverty can be reduced

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CONCLUSION (cont’d)

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection is currently working with all key stakeholder Social Protection Ministry including the Office of the President, Ministry of Finance and the National Development planning to establish Institutional Structures at the National, Regional, District and Community levels to effectively and efficiently coordinate all Social Protection Interventions including the LEAP.

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Asante sana