A few days ago, torrential rains in Tamale and its environs was reported to have left hundreds homeless and dozens displaced as it swept through the area. The National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) is at the forefront conducting an assessment to identify all affected persons and in the interim, provide relief items.

Again, other disasters have been reported; tidal wave in Keta Municipality, Nkwanta South, Prestea/Huni Valley, Kintampo North (Waterfall Disaster) and Samireboa-WR
In line with the Ghana’s Social Protection Policy and the Ministry’s mandate to protect all vulnerable and disadvantaged persons in Ghana, Emergency Cash Grant (Emergency LEAP) will be provided to the affected persons in the various districts to prevent the use of negative coping strategies. The Cash grant will serve as a buffer against the harsh impact of the disaster and prevent these households and families from adopting negative coping strategies such as reduced investment in education, nutrition, health and sale of their assets as a mechanism meet their consumption needs.
Through the Emergency LEAP programme, the Ministry we will assess the affected areas, and in conjunction with NADMO officials in the various districts, identify all individuals that have been displaced by these disasters. The affected persons shall be paid cash grants for a period of three months to complement the assistance of NADMO which mainly provide the relief items.
The disbursement of the cash grant to the identified and validated beneficiaries shall be through the Ezwich platform of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlements System (GHIPSS) where beneficiaries will be validated by their biometric fingerprints prior to the receipt of their cash grants.
Officials of the MoGCSP and NADMO from National and district levels will be engaged to monitor the process and ensure a smooth implementation of the activities at all levels.

HON. OTIKO AFISAH DJABA

The Honorable minister for Gender Children and Social Protection, Hon. Otiko Afisah Djaba, was in the Mfantseman district to monitor the 48thCycle LEAP Payments. Prior to her final stop at the Ndasiman community, she paid a curtesy call on the Central Regional Minister and the Municipal Chief Executive of Mfantseman.
In her speech to beneficiaries gathered at the Ndasiman pay point, the minister explained the essence of investing the LEAP grant into productive businesses; she stated that, social protection programmes should not be considered as handouts but rather economic levelers that provide an opportunity for each beneficiary to thrive.

The desired outcome of the LEAP programme is to graduate every beneficiary out of extreme poverty into a state of self-dependency. In line with, the LEAP Plus initiative based on the framework of productive inclusion has been designed to assist LEAP beneficiaries or caregivers with the innate desire to work and be productive. This assistance is non-monetary but rather a transfer of skills that reflects the capacity of the local economy. This training includes but not limited to; basket weaving, beads making, processing of shea butter etc. She explained that the LEAP plus initiative will effectively become an economic conveyor belt.

 

The product in this case is the rural entrepreneur who is seizing the opportunity of a lifetime to change his or her own life and while at it, to change the outlook of their families and community as well. Productive inclusion as a policy directive seeks to give beneficiaries the chance to take the agenda of changing lives into their own hands and to create beneficiaries out of their own businesses and opportunities. The ongoing project by Japan Social Development Fund, where selected LEAP beneficiaries are trained in basket weaving and production gives us a sneak peek into the endless opportunities that exist for all our beneficiaries.

Hon. Otiko Afisah Djaba further advised all beneficiaries to adopt healthy eating habits and ensure that children within their households are adequately provided for. She urged the beneficiaries to implement the advice of the Health Officer and incorporate fruits and vegetables into their diet.

In her closing remarks, the honorable minister stated that the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) is committed to safeguarding the life of every vulnerable and marginalized person, but however cautioned that this mandate cannot be achieved without their cooperation.

 

 

 

“A lot of people are suffering. Sometimes, they don’t even have what to eat,” said Juliana Abare a community development officer working with the Kumbungu District of the Northern Region.

Juliana is one of many officers working with people who are selected to benefit from LEAP payments. Dark, savvy and chubby, Juliana wears her blue and white stripped smock as she leads to me to the site where beneficiaries of the programme work.
LEAP is an abbreviation that stands for the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty program. It’s one of the interventions the Ghanaian government wants to use to bridge the poverty gap.
Whenever politicians in Ghana are asked about how they are dealing with the worsening levels of poverty their answer has been LEAP and how it is changing lives.

Under the cash transfer programme beneficiaries receive between 70 and 107 cedis every two months.

The good stories and the bad

My name is Justice Baidoo and in this programme for Hotline, I’m in Gugkpanarigu, a small town in the Northern Region. I’m here meeting two Ghanaians. One a is a LEAP beneficiary. The other isn’t.

LEAP coordinator Juliana is the one taking me round.
First I meet Mamunatu Danaa. She is a widow in her mid-fifties. Juliana has just brought me to meet a group of women engaged in shea butter processing on the outskirts of Gukpanarigu.

Many of the women here are widows who buy shea nuts mainly in the dry season to make butter and other products like soap and cream. They sit on small stools and logs, singing while they mix the shea butter.

 

Mamunatu lost her husband three years ago. Until LEAP, she was left to her fate.

Now that my husband is not alive, whatever I am doing is difficult. He died and left behind children so as a widow, there are so many things you can’t do. So the LEAP money is all we depend on even though it’s not much. When my husband passed on, one of my older children dropped out of secondary school because I couldn’t pay the fees. So now, I am focusing on the little ones so that they can finish school,” Manunatu said.
Mamunatu, with her 7 children, receive 107 cedis every two months under this programme.

“With the money I get, I use some to buy the nuts and then I prepare the butter in the dry season,” she said.

Mamunatu is just one of nearly 150,000 people who are currently supported by LEAP. She is obviously, one of the lucky few.
Currently, nine out of 10 of Ghana’s poorest people who are supposed to be on a social intervention such as LEAP are not enrolled. That is, only one out of 10 Ghanaians eligible for LEAP benefits is covered.

Many of these uncovered people live in Gupanarigu. A small town of about 1,500 people, this is a community mainly inhabited by farmers. Life is tough here. The rainy season only lasts for less than four months. And with farming activity here entirely rain-fed, there is virtually no economic activity for more than half of the year. Sayibu Neindow is the Assemblyman.

“The poverty level in this community is very serious such that most of the inhabitants find it very difficult in assessing the basic social amenities. As I’m speaking if you go into the communities you see young men sitting under trees waiting for the rains to set in and others have also moved down south to find money to come and till their land when the rains are back,” he said.

Gupanarigu’s story runs through those of several others in the Northern Region. With 1.3 million people in this region alone now desperately poor, according to the Ghana’s statistical Service, the Northern Region is the third poorest of Ghana’s ten regions. The region is however the worst in terms of depth of poverty.

The poverty affects every aspect of life here. The roads are bad, farmers have no money to buy fertilizer and the hunger is choking.

“This time, without money, farming is valueless. If you farm and you cannot get fertilizer whatever you farmed will not produce anything. When the roads are not motorable, your yields will be stuck,” Sayibu said.

And that, essentially is the story of Ghana’s poorest regions.

Just on the outskirts of Gupanarigu, Juliana has brought me to meet Zinabu. She, like Mamunatu, is a widow and has 8 children.
Her 17-year old daughter, Amina has just been sent home as she’s unable to pay her fees. Now she is down with an unknown sickness and has no money to seek medical care.

Amina is Zainabu’s only child who is still in school. Her six other children dropped out of school when her husband died. Now, as is the case is with some women who lose their husbands in parts of Ghana, her husband’s family are threatening to throw her out of her family house.
“My husband’s family wants me out. I don’t have anywhere to go,” she said.

LEAP coordinator Juliana said “people are suffering. Some don’t even have what to eat. I always like to help people. There is the need for the LEAP programme to be expanded.”
From my stay in this community it is clear that at least for those who are covered by the LEAP programme, there seems to be a semblance of change. But it appears majority are those yet to benefit.

Many of them, including children, are starving. They need help.

147,881 households to be paid for the months of May and June, 2016

The Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme, will commence its 43rd payment cycle from 1st to 5th August, 2016. A total of 147,881 beneficiary households in 187 districts will be paid their LEAP grants. During the payment period which covers 2 months; one eligible household member will receive GHS 64.00, a two eligible member household receives GHS 76.00, while a three eligible member household will receive GHS 88.00 and four or more eligible member household will receive GHS106.00. These payments cover the months of May and June, 2016.

This 43rd cycle payment will include 192 households from the ‘Alleged Witches Camps’ in Gushiegu in the Northern region and the Mampong Babies Home in Ashanti region. This group of beneficiaries fall under the specialised category for automatic inclusion onto the LEAP Programme. The inclusion of the specialised category of beneficiaries is in line with the Programme’s objective to reduce the plight of the vulnerable and marginalized in the society.

All the beneficiaries will be paid electronically using the e-zwich platform of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS). This payment platform uses biometric fingerprint to verify beneficiaries before payment.
The LEAP Programme is making impact on the lives of its target group: orphans and vulnerable children, elderly above 65 years, and persons with severe disability without productive capacity. An independent research conducted by Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), a leading civil society organization, between 2014 and 2015, indicates that LEAP contributed to 12% increase in school enrollment of children of school going age. Other findings from the research include: children in LEAP households are more motivated to attend school; Improved access to health care through NHIS for LEAP beneficiaries, 65% of LEAP households reported an increase in food security for the children, 62% of beneficiary are able to purchase fertilizers and 63% of LEAP households have invested their accumulated grants savings into economic activities in their communities.

The findings from the CDD research corroborated the 2012 findings from the impact assessment conducted by ISSER and North Carolina University of USA in 2012. Another round of impact evaluation of the Programme is being conducted by the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana.

By the LEAP Programme design all LEAP beneficiaries are to be registered on the National Health Insurance Scheme free-of-charge to improve access to health care for the extremely poor, vulnerable and excluded. In line with this, the LEAP Programme in collaboration with the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is embarking on a nation-wide registration of new LEAP beneficiaries who have not yet acquired the National Health Insurance card. The number of beneficiary household members to be registered in this exercise is 214,067 members.

ISSUED BY:
LEAP PROGRAMME SECRETARIAT
MINISTRY OF GENDER CHILDREN
AND SOCIAL PROTECTION, ACCRA.