Use community groups to implement social protection - Actors

Some state and non-state actors in the Northern Region have called for the use of community social groups in implementing social protection projects and programmes to help ensure effective results.

They argued that community social groups knew members of their communities better and, therefore, involving them in implementing social protection interventions would help to select the right beneficiaries to ensure that desired objectives of the interventions were achieved.

They also called for a stop to politicization and political interference in the implementation of the government’s social protection interventions to ensure that the citizenry owned such interventions and contributed to their success.

These were part of contributions at a roundtable in Tamale to validate participatory research, which was conducted last year by the Network for Community Planning and Development (NECPAD) as part of the Sustainable Livelihood project.

The project was about linking sustainable agriculture and organic waste management to decent work.

The research proposed that the government-funded social protection project managers worked hand-in-hand with the non-state social protection actors and the community-based social protection system.

They said the community-based social protection system was fraught with challenges of lack of coordination, and cooperation, hence the need to strengthen it to deliver effective social protection for the people.

Participants included representatives from the Northern Regional Coordinating Council, selected district assemblies from the region, Departments of Social Welfare, and Community Development, civil society organizations, amongst others.

The Sustainable Livelihood project is co-funded by the European Union in Ghana in the framework of the Civil Society Organisations in Research and Innovation for Sustainable Development and aimed at enhancing livelihood opportunities of rural communities living in the Savannah Ecological Zone.

Participants also called for a family support system to offer the needed support to members to undertake various livelihood activities to earn living.

Mr. Hashim Abdallah, District Chief Executive for Mion, lauded the project and said the research report would help to better implement social protection interventions for the benefit of the people.

Madam Belinda Cobb, a Director at the National Authorising Office, Ministry of Finance, called for the involvement of more women in the implementation of the project since it was about sustainability.

Miss Susana Martins, Programme Officer, Infrastructure and Sustainable Development at the European Union (Delegation of the European Union to Ghana), was optimistic that the project would achieve its intended objectives for the benefit of the people.

Mr Paul Asamoah Kukuaw, Executive Director of NECPAD, said after validating the research report, “It is going to be a working document, and we will use it to do a lot more advocacy to get the government on board, to get civil society on board and to also empower citizens, communities to ask for their rights.”