Gender Ministry to co-ordinate social protection programmes
The cabinet has given approval for the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) to co-ordinate all social protection programmes in the country.
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To this end, the ministry will come up with arrangements to manage all such programmes, including the Ghana School Feeding Programme, the Youth in Agriculture Programme and the Local Enterprises and Skills Development Programme (LESDEP).
The sector Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, made this known when she took her turn at the weekly meet-the-press series organised by the Ministry of Information and Media Relations in Accra yesterday.
She said the ministry was in the process of finalising the development of a social protection policy, a complementary services registry and a national common targeting mechanism to enhance co-ordination of all the social protection interventions, with support from the World Bank.
Achievements
Nana Oye said the ministry had chalked up some remarkable achievements in the implementation of its programmes, such as drafting and validating a comprehensive restructuring plan and performance management framework to reflect the ministry’s new and expanded mandate.
It had also drafted a national gender policy to address gender equality, equity and empowerment of women for national development, she said.
She said the ministry had also undertaken fistula repairs for 68 women from the Upper East, Upper West, Volta and Central regions, in collaboration with a team of doctors at the Mercy Health Centre, Mankessim, and reintegrated the beneficiaries into society.
Child protection
On children, Nana Oye said, among others, that the ministry had finalised the national child and family welfare policy designed to ensure the protection and welfare of children within a functional family welfare system.
It had also started reviewing the early childhood care and development (ECCD) policy to improve ECCD services for children up to eight years, she added.
She said to ensure that children were properly adopted, the ministry had placed a moratorium on child adoption, while it addressed current challenges to protect adopted children and their foster parents.
LEAP
Nana Oye said 73,134 beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme across the country had received grants to improve their socio-economic status, while 4,676 more had been identified and were ready to be enrolled onto the programme.
On the aged, the minister announced that the ministry had initiated a policy to implement free public transport and priority access for the elderly on private transport and at hospitals and banks.
About 3,500 people had been signed onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) as part of a piloted biometric registration programme for the aged, she added.
Donor funding
Nana Oye said USAID had provided US$4 million to be disbursed over four years to fund the UNICEF-supported LEAP 1000 initiative for pregnant and lactating women.
The ministry was also to receive £30 million from the DFID and another £6 million for institutional strengthening and the development of systems and structures, she said, adding that the World Bank would also provide US$25 million for the development of a social protection policy, LEAP cash transfers and assist the establishment of the National Targeting Unit.
She said The Netherlands would provide US$6 in support of the implementation of the ECCD policy, while DANIDA was committing GH¢800,000 to programmes to end violence against women and girls.
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