The Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) management has held it’s re-assessment engagement programe with stakeholders at Damongo in the West Gonja Municipality of the savannah region on Friday,16th September 2022 to re-assess beneficiaries of the programme.
LEAP Re-assessment is the process of seeking to identify and determine the poverty status and eligibility of households (LEAP and non-LEAP) that should benefit from the LEAP programme; and to ultimately reduce the incidence of inclusion and exclusion errors occasioned by the dynamic nature of poverty due to the factor of time and improving the efficiencies of allocating budget to the most vulnerable households.
Since 2013, the LEAP programme had undergone a number of reforms and innovations including the transition from manual payment to electronic payment, all aimed at building efficient and effective cash transfer system.
The municipal coordinating Director, Mr Jimah Yakubu On behalf of the municipal chief executive for the West Gonja Municipal Assembly said, the reassessment programme is to enable the LEAP programme learn lessons in their operations and as well inform the national rollout of the reassessment.
He also explained that, the essence of the reassessment was to have a good beneficiary database that justifies the selection of extremely poor households into the leap programme.
Mr. Jimah assured that, the LEAP programme will be of continuous support to the poor and once the impending assignment is completed, the new policies will commence.
The Savannah regional social welfare Director, Mr. Ambrose O. Amoateng on his part, encouraged members to be objective in delivering their mandate as stakeholders to reduce inclusion and exclusion errors as far as the leap programme is concerned in other to improve on the livelihoods of beneficiaries.
He further stated that members are given the general overview of LEAP and are also extensively educated on their role in the LEAP reassessment exercise and the goal it’s sorts to achieve and also improve on the Programme’s coverage of the extremely poor population in the country.
The objectives of the reassessment exercise is to ensure that, cash grants go to the eligible people through updating the LEAP beneficiary list based on changes in poverty levels, household composition and programme requirements and to also identify households that are no longer eligible for LEAP and link them to other complementary services and support.
The programme according to the regional Director will also enhance Programme transparency, consistency, and fairness by providing an even playing field for all extremely poor households to enrol onto the programme.
In addition, the West Gonja municipal assembly has been selected among nine (9) other district in the country for a pilot reassessment of the program
Members, chiefs and opinions leaders affirmed their pledge to support all the activities and policies of the LEAP programme.
The LEAP programme currently provides cash grant to over 344,000 beneficiary households in 260 districts across the country.
Since the inception of LEAP in 2008, UNICEF has supported the LEAP programme in the area of funding and providing technical assistance and guidance.
The focus of the support was to complement Government of Ghana’s priority of impacting the most vulnerable and marginalised households in Ghana.
LEAP targets extremely poor households with at least one or more members of these categories, Orphans(at least one parent dead) and vulnerable children, Persons who are 65 years or older without support, Persons with a severe disability without productive capacity, Pregnant women and children under 1 year.
PadfmNews/ Gogu Edwin
