Social protection: Mahama's unsung achievements

Very often, communicators of the ruling New Patriotic Party shout on rooftops asking the NDC to name just one social intervention policy under the Mahama-led Administration. Whenever I hear this, I shake my head and laugh. I am going to provide proof of the intensive work he did and its massive impact on the poor and vulnerable.

President

Read full articleMahama remains committed to implementing policies aimed at cushioning the poor and vulnerable. Consequently, existing social intervention schemes were expanded to rope in more beneficiaries under his Government.

New interventions were also introduced. They include EBAN Card, a welfare card for the elderly. It was launched to offer priority access to public services such as health, transport, banking services, etc.

A national rollout exercise registered over 25,000 elderly persons and about 6,000 beneficiaries were captured on the enhanced Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP).

The LEAP programme saw exponential expansion from 1,654 beneficiary households in 2008 to 116,000 households. This represented an increase óf 6,913.3% and translated into 522,000 beneficiaries. It covered 4,072 communities in 188 districts.

A new category of beneficiaries known as LEAP 1000 was added to the programme. It comprised extremely poor pregnant women and children under 5 years. This was aimed at addressing the incidence of malnutrition and stunting, especially in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. 6,200 were registered under the scheme and received cash transfers.

Following the twin flood and fire disaster of June 3, 2015, an emergency LEAP intervention programme was implemented under which GHC3.9 million was disbursed to support households affected by the disaster.

Furthermore, the Ghana National Household Register was set up to create a database of extremely poor people. The objective was to compile a database using scientific and accurate means to facilitate the planning and rollout of social intervention programmes.

Reference: NDC Green Book