The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection with support from the World Food Programme (WFP) have successfully launched the Cash Transfer Programme to COVID-Affected Daily Wage Earners on Thursday, 8th October, 2020 at Mantse Agbonaa in Accra.
This was necessitated by the emergency data collected by the Ghana National Household Registry, (GNHR) a unit under the Ministry mandated to create a Single National Household Register of the poor and vulnerable.
Speaking at the Launch, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Cynthia Mamle Morrison said the Government of Ghana under the leadership of His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is working hard on creating an equal society where the poor and vulnerable are also given the opportunity to live a descent life.
The Minister announced that the GNHR would in the coming months profile priority areas such as the disabled, street children, alleged witches and kayayei’s across some hot spot zones in the country for government to extend support to these categorized vulnerable groups.
Hon. Cynthia Mamle Morrison thanked the World Food Programme (WFP) for their support in reaching out to the vulnerable.
In his speech, the National Coordinator of the Ghana National Household Registry (GNHR), Dr. Prosper Laari said the key to a successful and productive social protection programme is the need for a comprehensive and robust data on the poor and vulnerable to inform government’s decision making for relief services to affected groups.
He added that, the GNHR has so far collected data in the Upper West, Upper East and now almost 80% through on about 400,000 households in North East, Savannah and the Northern Regions. This data he said is being utilized by the Social Protection programmes in Ghana and others like the MMDAs, academia and Civil Society Organizations.
Dr. Laari announced that the GNHR has successfully registered 137,565 households in Upper West Region and 184,125 households in the Upper East Region and 400,000 in North East, Savannah and Northern Regions. He thanked WFP for their support and also relying on the GNHR’s data to reach out to the vulnerable groups in the country.
Ms. Rukia Yacoub, WFP Representative and Country Director in her statement said the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 have put at risk the successes chalked in reducing poverty and hunger over the past decades, threatening economic and human capital development and progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
She added that following the profiling of COVID-affected people by the Ghana National Household Registry, the World Food Programme will support government’s social protection programme with cash transfers to 75,000 daily wage earners and smallholder farmers.
According to Ms. Rukia Yacoub, the support is to help address the food security and nutrition needs of primarily, the urban poor, while they recover from negative effects of the pandemic on their livelihoods.
Explaining the rational behind the cash transfer, Mr. Mawutor Ablo, Director for Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry said the cash transfer is to support vulnerable households to smoothen their livelihoods and also expand their business.
As part of the programme, WFP will provide GH¢ 11 million to support up to 75,000 vulnerable people in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions which have been deemed to be the hardest hit by the COVID-19 infections for up to a five month period.
The beneficiaries will be identified by the Ghana National Household Registry data aligned with poverty and food insecurity indices; the beneficiaries shall consist of 60 percent female and 40 percent male.
