GHANA PRODUCTIVE SAFETY NET PROJECT (GPSNP) BOLGATANGAZONAL COORDINATING OFFICE (BZCO) PROGRESS REPORT AS AT 31ST AUGUST, 2020
The Government of Ghana is committed to promoting inclusive economic growth that reduces poverty and creates job opportunities for all Ghanaians. The Government’s aim of promoting broad-based economic growth is outlined in the Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Development Policies (2017-2024) which underscores the need to mainstream employment creation in the national development of Ghana. To this end, the Government has prioritized investments in core infrastructure and launched a number of flagship programs that aim to enhance access to jobs, promote entrepreneurship and reduce constraints to growth. While these initiatives are likely to generate job opportunities that are suitable for much of the population, extremely poor households often experience unequal access to such programs, as well as basic services due to low literacy and skills, hence the need for safety net programmes that support extremely poor households to better access services that promote their productivity and improve their access to jobs.
- The Ghana Productive Safety Net Project (GPSNP) is therefore set up to support the Government to strengthen safety net systems that improve the productivity of the poor.
- Between 2010 and 2018, the Government implemented the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP), a precursor to the GPSNP which aimed to improve targeting of social protection programs and providing income support to poor households through Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) grants and Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) infrastructure in targeted districts.
- Accordingly, the GPSNP aims to further improve the effectiveness of the two programs (LEAP and LIPW) and to complement these with concerted efforts to build linkages to productive support for extremely poor households. This is anticipated to address some of the constraints to productivity faced by the extremely poor households while consolidating the gains made in the social protection sector to date.
- The GPSNP is being funded by the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank to the tune of SDR 43.1Million (US$60million equivalent), US$23 million by the UK Department of International Development, and US$140 million by the Government of Ghana.
- The Project has five (5) components namely:
Component 1: Productive Inclusion (PI);
Component 2: Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW);
Component 3: Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) Cash Transfers;
Component 4: Social Protection Systems Strengthening;
Component 5a: Project Management, Coordination, and Capacity Building (MoGCSP); and
Component 5b: Project Management, Coordination, and Capacity Building (MLGRD).
- The GPSNP will be implemented jointly by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) and Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) with the former having responsibility for Components 1, 2 & 5b whilst MoGCSP take responsibility for Components 3, 4 & 5a.
The Bolgatanga Zonal Coordinating office (BZCO) is implementing two of the components in the Upper East and North East regions
- Component 1-Productive Inclusion (PI)
- Component 2 – Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW)
- Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW)
Introduction
LIPW is considered an effective approach towards the provision of short term employment to the poor in order to enable them meet their household expenditure, particularly during the agricultural off-season and will build upon lessons and experiences from GSOP. LIPW, as currently implemented in Ghana also aims to ensure the widespread adoption of the technology as a social protection and employment creation tool.
The objective of the LIPW component is to extend income-earning opportunities to extremely poor households through LIPW, which maintains or rehabilitates assets that improve the productivity of communities and respond to the anticipated effects of climate change.
A.3 Scope
The Component will finance: (i) payments to beneficiaries in exchange for their work in rehabilitating or maintaining productive community or public assets; (ii) the costs of capital inputs for the sub-projects; (iii) supervision of the LIPW sites; (iv) capacity building for Contractors, DAs and other actors in LIPW delivery; and (v) information sessions to beneficiaries on human capital (such as on nutrition) and behavioural change around savings.
Works execution will either be outsourced or implemented through the Force Account arrangements.
The wage rate will be set at the national minimum wage rounded to the nearest whole Cedi.
Each beneficiary household representative will work for a maximum of 90 person-days per year during the agricultural off-season. To deepen impacts, households will work on LIPW sites for two consecutive dry seasons over a two-year period. This work will be provided through sub-projects that require multi-year investments or two different sub-projects.
Implementation of LIPW will comply with the guidance detailed in the National Labor Intensive Public Works Policy, 2016.
The menu of sub-projects include the construction and rehabilitation of small earth dams and dugouts (SEDDs), feeder roads (FRs) and climate change mitigation interventions (CCMIs). Other sub-project types which will lend themselves to the use of Labour Intensive methods of construction will also be explored and implemented during the Project.
A.4 LIPW IMPLEMENTATION IN THE UPPER EAST REGION
The LIPW Component is being implemented in eleven (11) Municipal/Districts Assemblies (M/DAs) in the Upper East Region with technical support from the Bolgatanga Zonal Coordinating Office (BZCO) and the Rural Development Coordination Unit (RDCU) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD)
Table 1: Sub-projects being implemented in 2020 under LIPW
|
REGION |
CATEGORY OF SUB-PROJECT |
TOTAL |
||
|
FEEDER ROAD |
SEDD (DAMS & DUGOUTS) |
CCMI (Climate change Mitigation Interventions) |
||
|
Upper East |
8 |
18 |
15 |
41 |
A.4 Additional sub-projects for 2020
Besides the Forty-one(41) sub-projects being implemented in 2020, Bid evaluation is ongoing for five(5) additional sub-projects made up of three(3) feeder roads and two (2) Small earth dam and dugouts(SEDDs) as part of the 2020 Budget. The District Assemblies which are benefiting from these additional sub-projects are Builsa North, Bongo, Bawku West, Talensi and Pusiga.
A.5 SUMMARY OF STATUS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF LIPW FROM AUGUST, 2019 TO 31ST AUGUST, 2020
- A total of forty-one(41) sub-projects made up of Eight (8) Feeder roads with a total length of 37.1km , eighteen(18) small earth dams and dugouts and fifteen (15) Climate Change Mitigation Interventions (CCMIs) are currently being implemented in the region.
- A total of one hundred and fifteen hectares (115HA) of cashew and eight Hectares (8HA) of mango plantations are being developed.
- Eight hundred thousand (800,000) cashew seedlings are currently being produced to be distributed to interested cashew farmers in the region. The target is to produce a total of Two million (2,000,000) seedling in the upper east region in 2020 under the GPSNP.
- A total number of Four Thousand, five hundred and Twenty (4,520) beneficiaries made of One thousand, two hundred and ninety-four (1,294) male and Three thousand, two hundred and Twenty-six (3,226) Female beneficiaries have been employed; that is 28.60% are male and 71.40% are female beneficiaries.
- The planned cost of the forty-one (41) sub-projects being executed is Fifteen million, one hundred and one thousand, five hundred and Eighty six Ghana cedis (15,101,586.00).
- Seventy percent (70%) of the total cost of all sub-projects is to be paid to beneficiaries as wages, that is Ten million, five hundred and seventy-one thousand, one hundred and ten Ghana cedis (GHS10,571,110.00))