Eradicating extreme poverty in Africa through productive inclusion: A comparative assessment of two social protection programmes in Ghana

Abstract

Ghana has experimented with two social protection programmes: the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, and the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) pilot project aimed at reducing extreme poverty and enhancing the standard of living of beneficiaries. This study comparatively assessed how the LEAP programme and the JSDF-LEAP project have contributed to improving the standard of living of beneficiaries. A sample of 167 respondents, comprising 81 LEAP households, 82 JSDF-LEAP beneficiaries and four District Social Welfare Officers took part in the study. The study findings suggest that cash transfers alone such as the LEAP programme may not yield significant improvement in the standard of living of the extremely poor without complementary programmes such as the JSDF-LEAP project to address the livelihood and other socio-economic challenges that they encounter. The study recommends a holistic approach to tackling extreme poverty through ‘cash plus’ programmes. Points for practitioners The findings of this study highlight the need for public administration practitioners involved in poverty eradication programmes to pursue a simultaneous design involving the implementation of both cash transfers and productive inclusion programmes as the preferred strategy for improving the standard of living of the extremely poor. Moreover, this research has also revealed that for social protection programmes to be successfully implemented, carefully designed systems and structures must be put in place at the national level, through the regional, district and community levels at the design and implementation phases of such interventions.

The hidden costs of austerity for social programmes in the Global South: Qualitative insights from two complementary services in Ghana's Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme

“…While the immediate goal is to increase household consumption, its long‐term objective is to invest in Ghana's human capital base. The programme pays between 64 and 106 GHS to extremely poor households with orphans and vulnerable children, the elderly aged 65 years plus with no income and persons with severe disabilities (Amofa et al, 2022; Foli, 2016; Palermo et al, 2019). Although LEAP payments to the severely disabled and beneficiaries 65 years and above are unconditional (Foli, 2016), payments to caregivers of orphans and vulnerable children are conditional on registering new babies and completing immunisation, enrolling children in school and ensuring attendance, protecting children from child labour, and finally, registering households into the national health insurance system (Foli, 2016; Sackey, 2019).…”

Alleviating Extreme Poverty Through Community Empowerment Programs

“…Extreme poverty can be addressed directly by the international community through the design of strong pro-poverty policies that work better for the very poor and are easy to implement through coordination and monitoring (Amofa et al, 2022). While (Yap & McFarlane, 2020) argues that extreme urban poverty has long been considered a vital challenge, tackling it can be done through epistemic approaches: political economy, political ecology, feminist urbanism, and post-colonial urbanism.…”