President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said the government would continue to improve and expand social protection interventions to cover those who need them, including women with disability.

“It is critical that the social protection interventions are targeted at those who genuinely need them, and who would use them to help lift themselves out of poverty,” President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said on Thursday in the State of Nation Address.

“We never lose sight of the fact that there are always some people who might not be able to run life’s race at the same frenetic pace as the majority of people.’’

“It is the responsibility of government always to provide the safety net that will ensure that the poor and vulnerable are not excluded from the development agenda”, he explained.

He stated that the Ghana National Household Registry (GNHR), in collaboration with the Ghana Statistical Service, was collecting data on all extremely poor households in the country through inter-institutional coordination, to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in social protection spending.

That will also eliminate duplication in targeting and selection of beneficiaries for social protection programmes.

He said for the first time in the country’s history, a dedicated fund of five million cedis to support women entrepreneurs with disability had been established.

The fund, known as Presidential Empowerment for Women Entrepreneurs with Disability, was to provide financial support to 1,000 of the women in two years, either to establish or scale-up their businesses.

So far, 850 of them across the country had benefitted from the fund, which is 50 per cent grant and 50 per cent loan without interest.

The President said the support had enabled the women to expand their businesses and to create 180 direct jobs and many more indirect jobs.

The fund did not only help to deliver a manifesto commitment, he said, but also fulfilled the SDG five, eight, and ten, which aim to ensure economic inclusion of women, and to harness their talents and capabilities for national development.

He said the State had begun the process of amending the Disability Act, Act 715, to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and was expecting Parliament to pass it before the end of the year.

As part of the Disability Inclusive Policy of Government, all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies have representations of Persons with Disability to enable them to partake in local level governance.