Ghana has heaped praises on the Association of Church-based Development Project (ACDEP) and the Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC) for turning thousands of lives around in the northern area of the country through a project dubbed Resilient and Sustainable Livelihoods Transformation (RESULT).

Launched in 2012, the project is said to have improved livelihoods, bridged hunger gap and boosted nutrition security with a 19-million-Canadian-dollar funding aid from the Global Affairs Canada.

Some 21,167 vulnerable individuals, 70% of them females, were supported in 140 rural communities in 7 local government areas— Nabdam, Bongo, Talensi, Kassena-Nankana Municipality, Kassena-Nankana West, Jirapa and Lawra.

“RESULT, as the name connotes, is actually result-based. They have actually gone beyond just activities. There is evidence on the fields, things that we can see, things that can actually go on for a long time to improve the lives of our people. They have been able to build the capacity of [beneficiaries engaged in] crops, livestock and aquaculture,” observed the Upper East Regional Director of the Department of Agriculture, Francis Ennor.

He was speaking Tuesday at a forum organised in Bolgatanga, the Upper East regional capital, by ACDEP and CFTC for stakeholders to share knowledge and lessons acquired so far.

The project comes to a close this year. But addressing participants at the forum, ACDEP Executive Director, Malex Alebikiya, said: “With the right resources, the agencies are poised to continue.”

ACDEP, CFTC make Fresh Donations to Beneficiaries

The ongoing forum has in attendance two former Pro-Vice Chancellors of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor Saa Dittoh and Professor David Millar, as well as directors of agencies in Ghana and Uganda.

A delegation of ACDEP and CFTC officials, accompanied by some food security and environmental protection experts, undertook field visits Monday to some of the beneficiary local government areas in the Upper East region.

The visit to the Bongo District saw ACDEP and CFTC donate some items including a deep freezer and a motorised tricycle (locally referred to as motorking) to a group of beneficiaries who belong to the Bongo Agribusiness Incubator Hub (BAIH) at Bon-Gurigo. Whilst the deep freezer is to help the aquaculture farmers preserve their stock, the vehicle is meant for transportation of goods from production site to market.

Interacting with the contingent in the Nabdam District, the Chief of Dasabligo and his subjects noted that the intervention had curbed unemployment-induced migration of community members to remote parts of the country.

“Until now, the women in this community never had their own livelihoods. We (women) were always together with their husbands, working on their husbands’ farms. But, through the intervention, women in this area now have their own businesses to support their households,” said Azumah Yen.

CFTC in Search of more Donor Support

A delighted-looking District Chief Executive (DCE) for Nabdam, Agnes Anamoo, applauded ACDEP and CFTC for their poverty-alleviation efforts in the area.

She also urged all the agencies and departments in the district to help advertise the “cheap tilapia” being produced at the fish market established at Dasabligo through the RESULT project. The DCE further appealed to the benefactors to extend the support to the other communities in the district.

Speaking to Starr News, the CFTC Country Director, Susan Watkins, hinted at plans by her outfit to source more funding to spread out the support.

“We have already started the process of looking for additional funding. We have plans to get the donors to support us [further]. We’ll show to them the achievements we have had with RESULT and how it would be good to scale it up to more districts and more communities,” remarked Susan Watkins, who is also the RESULT Project Director.

An aquaculture specialist, Peter Kwame Akpaglo, declared himself satisfied with the rate at which the RESULT’s tilapia business was growing in the beneficiary communities but was worried about access to feed for the fish.

“The barrier we really have to break now is access to fish feed. As we speak now, we still have to go for fish feed from the south. So, it is about time for our entrepreneurs or business people to take advantage of that because there is production throughout the year and, so, they will be needing feed throughout the year,” Mr. Akpaglo stated.