NSPS EFFECTIVE FOR FIGHTING POVERTY .... (Page 34)

Story: Kwame Asiedu Marfo, Takoradi

THE acting Director of the Centre for Social Policy Studies of the University of Ghana, Dr Ellen Bortei-Doku Aryeetey, has stated that the National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) has been widely accepted as an important strategy for fighting poverty, vulnerability and exclusion.
She said Ghana had now adopted social protection and improved funding in the social services sector, such as the Department of Social Welfare, the Public Works Department, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), among others, but added that there was still room for improvement.
Dr Aryeetey was speaking at a day’s NSPS sensitisation workshop in Takoradi. It was organised by the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment.
Dr Aryeetey, who is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, said the provision of social security and other forms of protection could start even in the midst of widespread poverty.
She explained that social protection was aimed at reducing multi-dimensional deprivation.
Dr Aryeetey, who was the team leader for the workshop, explained that the relaunch of social protection thinking was the result of concerns expressed at the 1995 Copenhagen Social Summit to push social development agenda, as well as the consensus across the United Nations/Breton Woods divide.
She said civil society and the UNDP had been a striking force for social protection, which aimed at enhancing the capacity of the poor.
Dr Aryeetey added that research centres had also played a major role in social protection.
The Programme Co-ordinator of the NSPS, Mrs Angela Asante-Asare, said there was a mainstream policy for social protection to make it part of the main development agenda whose goal was to ensure that Ghanaians got $1,000 per capita income by 2015.
She explained that it was an umbrella concept covering a wide range of programmes, stakeholders and social instruments.
Mrs Asante-Asare mentioned some of the instruments as the 1992 Constitution, the Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560), the Persons With Disability Act 2005, (Act 715), the Interna-tional Labour Organisation Convention 182 and the Convention on the Rights of Children.
According to her, statistics showed that 40 per cent of Ghanaians were poor and could not cater for their basic needs.
Out of that, over 26 per cent were extremely poor, while more than 14 per cent were the poorest of the poor who were not able to cater for basic human needs, including their nutritional requirements.
Mrs Asante-Asare said it was estimated that 40 per cent of children between the ages of five and 17 were engaged in economic activities, while 20 per cent or 1.27 million children were engaged in child labour, with an estimated 242,000 engaged in hazardous labour.
She mentioned some of the worst forms of child labour as mining, quarrying, fishing, head portage, child trafficking, as well as harmful traditional practices.
She said the NSPS interventions would be based upon improvement in existing mechanisms and the formulation of new interventions.
According to Mrs Asante-Asare, the School Feeding Programme, the Capitation Grant, the National Youth Employment Programme, as well as skills training and apprenticeship, were not only building economic capacity but also social capacity.
The programme co-ordinator said Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), a component of the NSPS being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare, was the first in the West African sub-region.
The Western Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Ms Joanna W. Mensah, said in 2005, UNICEF selected 21 districts in the country for pilot studies to help care for orphans, the vulnerable and other children.
She said the Nzema East District in the Western Region was selected as one of the pilot schemes and work was done in nine communities, where UNICEF took care of the health insurance of the people.
Mr Mensah stated that with the introduction of the LEAP programme, the department was working in two communities with 133 households and 419 orphans and other vulnerable children.