Ghana today (January 4, 2016) urged the international community to support social protection systems that would help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It has therefore stressed the need for partnerships to support programmes that empower the poor,vulnerable and the excluded in the society.

Presenting Ghana's position at the on going 54th session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development at the UN headquarters in New York, Nana Oye Lithur, Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection said that the recently adopted SDGs called for a holistic review and reflection on the achievements as well as challenges encountered in implementing the Millennium Development Goals.

"Though social protection programmes are adopted to address poverty, vulnerability and exclusion under the MDGs, the results show that countries that adopted a systems approach achieved better results, the Minister stated.

As a key strategy for achieving the SDGs, Nana Oye Lithur disclosed that the Ghana government is learning from its best practices and building an effective social protection system.

Commenting on the theme, "Rethinking and strengthening Social development in the Contemporary World" , she suggested that a component of the session should focus on the identification of good practices such as policies and strategies in the implementation of the MDGs that could be adopted and suited to different socio-economic and geographic contexts.

Outlining some of Ghana's achievements under the systems, she said for example that for the past nine years, income security had been provided to the extremely poor households with orphan and vulnerable children, severely disabled persons and elderly 65 years and above.

ln addition, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) which started in 2008 with 1,654 households now covered 146,074 households, that covers 577,000 individuals in 188 districts.

To support the elderly in Ghana, the Minister announced that the National Policy on the Aged is being implemented. "A bill for the aged has also been drafted, awaiting Cabinet approval".

Aside these measures, she said the Eban Elderly Welfare Card which was introduced in 2015 to enable elderly persons above the age of 65 years to benefit from 50 per cent reductions in Metro Mass bus fares and get priority access to other social services such as hospitals and banks.

A further remarkable feat achieved was the development of the Ghana Standards on Accessibility Designs,that would enable owners of public buildings to provide accessibility to buildings for disabled persons in compliance with the Disability Act of 2006. This, she said was developed by the National Council on Persons with Disability (NCPD) under her Ministry.

To cap this, Nana Oye Lithur mentioned that a national campaign to ensure that public buildings are disability friendly is to be launched, adding that "A Legislative Instrument for the Disability Act is being drafted.In doing all these, we have built partnership with development partners in Ghana including the World Bank, DFID, UNICEF and the entire UN system and some leading social protection countries".