Phase two of the Ghana Productive Safety Net Project will be implemented with support from the World Bank valued at $100 million (GPSNP).
Following the successful completion of the project’s first phase, which ran from 2019 to 2022 in 80 districts, phase two would be implemented from 2022 to 2025 in 100 districts throughout the nation.
This was disclosed in Wa during an orientation training for recipient Regional Coordinating Councils and District Assemblies under the GPSNP Wa Zone by Mr. Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, a Deputy Minister of Local Government, Decentralization, and Rural Development.
The Ministry of Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development (MLGDRD) and the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Families work together to implement the GPSNP, a social intervention program.
The MGCSP additionally concentrated on Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) and Social Protection System Strengthening components, while the MLGDRD oversaw the implementation of the Labour-Intensive Public Works Programme (LIPW) and Productive Inclusion (PI) elements of the project.
The 100 recipient districts, according to Mr Korsah, who is also a member of parliament for the Techiman South Constituency in the Bono East Region, would now include urban areas that were excluded from phase one.
“The objective of the second phase of GPSNP is to expand and enhance social safety nets that improve the incomes and productivity of the poor in rural and urban areas in Ghana,” he indicated.
The Minister outlined how the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) data from the Ghana Statistical Service would be used to determine the project’s target beneficiaries from the nation’s lowest districts and villages (GSS).
A PI program would benefit 35,000 people, a LIPW program would benefit 60,000 people, and a cash transfer program would benefit 350,000 households.
“Since effectiveness, the Ministry has disbursed a total amount of GHS 91.8 million as direct grants to beneficiaries under both the Productive Inclusion (PI) and Labour-Intensive Public Works (LIPW) components,” Mr Korsah observed.
The project’s objective is to reduce poverty and put money in people’s pockets, according to Mrs. Cedonia Dere, the Wa Zonal Coordinator of the GPSNP, who noted that since 2019, the project had impacted the livelihoods of thousands of people in the communities through the different modules of the project.
She stated that via the participation of the beneficiary communities, they had distributed over GH$15 million to over 7,000 people across the 14 project districts to build 13 feeder roads, 22 dams, and 25 climate change initiatives (cashew plantations).
“As I am talking to you these people most of them averagely have received GH₵2,000.00 as wages which most of them are trading with and it has improved the lives of the beneficiaries and their families”, Mrs. Dere observed.
She continued by saying that the project had also given about 5,490 people more agency through the PI component by educating them in ways to generate income, such as raising animals, making soap, and processing shea butter, among other things, and providing them with about GHS 4 million in start-up money to help them launch their own businesses.
The Upper West Regional Minister, Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih, emphasized the need to raise awareness of the project among the beneficiary assemblies and to give comprehensive explanations of its goals and methods of implementation.
