Dauda Amalsum, a 38-year-old mother of four from Benwoko in the Garu Tempane District in the Upper East Region, had watched her children starve to sleep many nights, a situation that even deprived them of education at some point until the introduction of the Labour-intensive Public Works (LIPW) programme in her community in 2013.
Gains under LIPW
So in that year, Ms Amalsum was able to make enough savings to improve on the family’s nutritional needs as well as pay school fees, buy books and uniforms, and register her four children under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).More importantly, Ms Amalsum also used part of the money she accrued from the LIPW to buy fertiliser and seeds to enhance the family’s cultivation of maize, soya beans, rice and sesame seed. Her livestock has increased from one goat to five and one sheep to 10. She also bought 10 fowls to begin a poultry farm.
“After the completion of the LIPW intervention in my community last year, it is now the farm that is sustaining us,” she stated.
Like Ms Amalsum, there are many people who have been able to break the shackles of extreme poverty through the intervention of the LIPW programme.
Another beneficiary, Madam Mbi Atanga, a 45-year-old mother of three, worked as a head porter at the Bongo Feo Market in the Upper East Region following the demise of her husband three years ago. The highest she earned on a busy market day was GH¢10. “That money was hardly enough to feed us. We lived in abject poverty and all my three children dropped out of school,” she stated. Her fried yam business collapsed when her husband died but the family needed to be fed hence her decision to work as a head porter in the small Bongo Feo Market.
Fortune smiled on Madam Atanga when two years ago, the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) selected her for a small earth dam rehabilitation intervention under the LIPW programme. Her GH¢72 wage, paid every two weeks, was assured. She worked for seven months.
After the completion of the small earth dam sub-project, Madam Atanga was again selected to benefit from the Mango Plantation project, an afforestation programme in the same community also under the LIPW programme. She was paid GH¢110 each month.
A woman who has received electronic payment
“Presently, my three children, Rose, 11, Mathias, nine, and Simon, four, are all in school. I have also been able to rehabilitate my two rooms and hoping to reroof them soon,” she stated. As a means of ensuring that she earned sustainable income to keep her permanently out of poverty, she was fortunate to have been selected among 4,194 people who have been enrolled to benefit from a Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF)-sponsored Complementary Income Generation Support intervention currently being piloted in the Upper East Region for Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) and LIPW beneficiaries.
She has so far undergone vocational skills training in malt processing and was provided with a start-up Grant of GH¢705 to commence her small-scale enterprise in malt processing.
“With the support I am getting and proceeds from my malt business, I want to take good care of my three children so they can attain the highest level of education,” she said.
About the LIPW
The LIPW is a social protection intervention being implemented by GSOP. Instead of using heavy duty machines such as bulldozers and other earth moving equipment, members of communities in districts identified as extremely poor are selected and engaged for road works, small earth dam construction and afforestation projects. These works are normally done during the agriculture off-season.
The idea, according to the National Coordinator of GSOP, Mr Robert Austin, is to increase access to employment and put money into the pocket of the poor, as well as improve the productive capacities of rural social infrastructure and other community assets.
The LIPW programme is currently being implemented in 60 districts across the country.
Mr Austin explained that GSOP used a self-selection method as its targeting tool, achieved by fixing the LIPW wage rate at a level that was higher than the minimum wage but lower than the prevailing casual agricultural wage rate to ensure that only the extremely poor found it attractive working under the LIPW programme.
Findings by the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) in 2015 indicated that by this self-selection targeting method, 87.7 per cent of LIPW beneficiaries were extremely poor.
Investment so far
The country has been implementing the LIPW since 2011. So far, the government has invested an average of $12 million a year in 60 districts towards the rehabilitation of rural, social and economic infrastructure with about 50 per cent of this investment going directly to the poor as wages.
Impact
Some of the immediate outcomes of the LIPW after five years of implementation have been the rehabilitation of 170 rural roads which culminated in a total of 609 kilometres. A total of 159 small earth dams and dugouts have also been rehabilitated while 79 plantations (386 hectares) and fruit trees have been completed.
The implementation of the LIPW programme has led to the creation of temporary employment for 148,000 unskilled workers. Out of the number, 62 per cent have been women. As part of capacity building, 284 small-scale construction firms and 1,073 engineers and technicians have also been trained to equip them to effectively supervise LIPW delivery across the country.
Beneficiaries working on the rehabilitation of the Zanlerigu Dam in the Upper East Region
An Impact Evaluation carried out has confirmed that “Extreme poverty among LIPW beneficiary households decreased by 5.3 per cent compared to non-beneficiary households partly due to the increase in consumption expenditure” and “Food consumption expenditure increased by GH¢211.74 per Adult Equivalent for households with at least one LIPW beneficiary”.
“The LIPW is also having a positive impact on seasonal migration because people are engaged in the dry seasons which is off-farming periods,” the National Coordinator added.
Challenges
District Assemblies play a pivotal role in the implementation of LIPW programme from sub-project identification, design, procurement, implementation, supervision and monitoring.
“The poor attitude of some district assembly personnel presents a major challenge to the successful and effective delivery of the programme. We need some of the assemblies to be more committed to the LIPW programme. Where the leadership of the assemblies is working well, beneficiaries receive payment of wages promptly and high quality infrastructure is delivered,” Mr Austin observed.
Way forward
As part of a strategy to sustain the programme, a national LIPW policy will soon be launched to institutionalise it. “It is a social protection instrument that must be maintained by the government, and scaled up to all districts,” Mr Austin stated.
e at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development were considered as comprising a more comprehensive social development agenda than the minimalist Millennium Development Goals which focuses on poverty reduction. The call was therefore for a post 2015 transformational social development agenda – the transition from the MDGs to the SDGs - to be guided once again by the vision and principles of the Summit.
The Side Event organized by the Ghana Mission to the UN and the MoGCSP was more specific to Social Protection in Ghana. It was moderated by H.E. Ambassador Ken Kanda and comprised mainly of presentation of vision, status, current achievement and plans of the Government of Ghana on Social Protection.
The speakers at the Side Event included Hon Nana Oye Lithur, Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mr. Robert Austin, National Coordinator for GSOP, Mr. Mawutor Ablo, Director, Social Protection at MoGCSP and Mr. Peter Ragno of UNICEF Ghana. The Side Event was chaired by Mr. Ted Chaiban, Director, Programme Division at the UNICEF, New York.
Hope to write to you next month.
