The National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) And The Livelihood Empowerment Against   Poverty (LEAP) Programme 31st January, 2008

The National Social Protection Strategy is, as the name implies a set of measures of social assistance targeted at the poor, vulnerable and excluded. A Social Protection Strategy is recognition that at any time, in society, there are always people who would be in the category of extreme poor, vulnerable and excluded and would need special social assistance.

It is also generally recognized that social protection impacts not only on the welfare but also impacts directly on social development. Social Protection aims at providing safety nets to help address inadequacies of the market economy in delivering welfare and social growth across board. Social Protection as a concern is recognised and practised across the world.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as already indicated the concept of social protection is now widely recognised as a major complement development tool useful for building the socio-economic capacity of the most vulnerable in order to poise them to contribute to national development. The point to note here is that it is a commencement to sound economic policy.

In a lot of countries, there are benefit programmes for single mothers, minorities, and children under 16, the unemployed, tax relief for low income earners etc.

The National Social Protection strategy in line with international norms, also target the most vulnerable members of society, such as the extremely poor, orphan, and vulnerable children, severely disabled people, the aged poor (above 65) with no livelihood Support.

Our national agenda, as outlined in the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) recognise issues of the poor, vulnerable & excluded persons. According to GPRS II “the goal of attaining middle income status (with a per capita income of a least $ 1,000) by the 2015 is to be complemented by the adoption of an overall Social Protection Policy, aimed at empowering the vulnerable and excluded, to contribute to and share in the benefits of growth of the economy, thus ensuring sustained poverty reduction.”

The GPRS 11 gave MMYE the mandate to develop and implement a National Social Protection Strategy. The MMYE and other stakeholder MDAs started work on the strategy in 2004, completing in 2007. Page 40 paragraph 4 of the GPRS II “The social protection frame work will promote condition and unconditional cash transfer systems targeted at the elderly, pensioners, small holder farmers and people with disabilities.

In Ghana, even though the present government is deemed as rightist, the social protection credentials of government are very impressive.

Major policies such as the National Health Insurance, Capitation Grant, School Feeding Programme, Mass Transport, Free Ride for school children, Micro Credit for PWDs etc are all examples of social protection measures to enhance livehood and welfare for different categories of poor, extreme poor, the vulnerable and the excluded.

Another major Social Protection intervention which we hope would complement relief measures for categories of poor people is the Livehood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) which is soon to begin under the auspices of the MMYE and its Agencies.

THE DESIGN & IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS (NSPS & LEAP)

The LEAP has been designed by the team of Local and International Experts who have designed and implemented similar programmes in other developing countries such as South Africa, Zambia, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and Turkey.

The design was done through a participatory and consultative process involving MDAs such as the National Development Planning Commission, Ministries of Education; Health; Food & Agriculture, Women and Children, Civil Society Organisations, Development Partners and the Centre for Social Policy Studies of the University of Ghana design and subsequently reviewed and validated by relevant stakeholders.

Over the period of the design and various consultative/validation processes, the DSW with support from UNICEF has conducted an NHIS cash transfer scheme in 21 districts.

The core feature of LEAP Direct Cash Transfer to categories of poor people. Who are the targets? The GLSS 5 (2005-2006) indicates the 41% are poor, i.e. 18.2% are extremely poor, those whose income fall below $1.00 and are unable to cater for their basic human needs including their food requirements and suffer from poverty across generations.

The primary target of the LEAP Direct Cash Transfer is the 18.2% of people identified by the GLSS as falling into category of extreme poor.

The amounts to be disbursed per month range from GH8-GH15 or 80,000 cedis to 150,000 cedis, depending on if the extremely poor household also has an orphan, severely disabled person, and persons aged over 65.

The LEAP Pilot Programme will be implemented nationwide from 2008-2012. The roll out of the programme will start assisting 15,000 households in 2008, scaling up to 164,370.

The selection of households would be done using GLSS data, district poverty maps and the regional distribution of extreme poor so that the poorest regions would be fairly represented.

Targeted individuals in the households would be issued I.D cards.
Payment would be from nearest post offices.

FUNDING:

Donors, including DFID and UNICEF have been generous in providing funding to build the technical capacity of MMYE & DSW to develop and implement the social protection strategy and the LEAP.

In 2007 government allocated GH¢20 billion to support the LEAP programme and has earmarked another GH¢220 billion for the 2008 roll out.  The total cost of the programme by year 5 is estimated at GH¢26,000,000 amounting to less than 1% of GDP.

This point has to be emphasized.  We are spending less than 1% of GDP to achieve pay outs to over 160,000 extremely poor Ghanaian households as a major complementary measure to relieve these fellow citizens who at the moment find themselves in the category of extremely poor, vulnerable and excluded.

Direct Cash Transfers as a component of Social Protection is also common and regular.  An Unemployment benefits, (or US 40) where unemployed people are paid a stipend is a famous example of Direct Cash Transfers to vulnerable people as part of Social Protection.

As already mentioned, Direct Cash Transfer, a LEAP has been operating successfully in countries such as Brazil (12 years), Bolivia, and Turkey South Africa, Zambia, Costa Rice etc.

The current stage in the implementation is the National Sensitization exercise which has involved meetings and consultations with regional and district partners to dialogue and sensitize them on their respective roles in order to achieve an integrated and participatory approach to social protection implementation.

It is these meetings/consultations that have attracted media reportage and generated national interest in the programme.  Reactions have been interesting.

They have included questions of relevance or suitability/usefulness of Cash Transfers in poverty alleviation as indicated, Direct Cash Transfer as part of social policy is widely accepted.  The most famous example being unemployment benefits.  Cash Transfers alone will not eradicate poverty.  They complement other social interventions and go a long way to alleviate poverty.  Ghana’s programme is no different.  Beneficiaries are assisted over a period to build social-economic capacity to cater for subsistence needs.  While on the programme LEAP beneficiaries, targeted households would be linked without other livelihood promotion services from other MDAs to sustain the livelihood beyond the LEAP.

Direct Cash Transfer is therefore a complement to other social interventions like Health Insurance, Capitation Grant, School feeding and other social services all aimed at increasing the participation of the poor, extremely poor, the vulnerable and excluded in national economic and social development.

The point to note is that various poverty alleviation measures would have various degrees of targets, impact, or incidence.  It is not all poor families who may have a young beneficiary of NYEP or capitation grant or school feeding.  It is not all poor families who would utilize Health Insurance, for example. It is not all poor families who may benefit from micro credit.

Therefore, poverty targeting must be multi pronged, with different strategies to improve the changes of access. Job programmes, micro credit, Health Insurance, Direct Cash Transfers, school feeding, mass Transport etc are all part of a multi pronged strategy, to provide safety and promote social welfare, social and national development.
Another issue is the question about the quantity of money- GH 8-GH 15 or ¢80,000 to ¢150,000.

What would come to mind on this is a possible trade off between the amount and numbers of beneficiaries. But the amount has been arrived at after careful studies. The indication is that the average “extremely poor” househood in Ghana spends $6 a month.

We are talking about households who with an HIV sufferer have difficulty raising the highly subsidized GH 5 cost of monthly treatment.
We are talking about households that benefit from improved seed for planting but end up using some of the seeds for food. But the issue about the quantity is something we should discuss when the programme is up for review.

Questions have been raised about political patronage. Two issues come to mind,

1. Selection based on political affiliation. I have indicated that criteria have been developed by a credible team of local and international experts.
2. That the programme would inure to the benefit of the ruling party since this is an election year.

Let me state that the whole point of fighting competitive elections and winning power is to be able to deliver welfare and development to society.

If the populace sees the programme as enhancing their welfare and well being, then we should expect reasonable total support from all and sundry.

The objection that a welfare programme is dubious because it is an election year is a very unworthy objection. If pursued, then indeed, all development activity (building of roads, hospitals, schools, rural electrification, pay increase etc) should all cease in an election year. It is an unimagined absurdity.

Indeed, in this election year, Ghanaians should expect an accelerated development programme from Government that would impact positively on economic growth and social welfare. The LEAP (Cash Transfer) is only one small example.

THANK YOU.

• Email this page
• Printer friendly version