An expected 80,000 households across the length and breadth of the country will be added to the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) Programme by the end of December this year, Nana Oye Lithur, Minister for Women Children and Social Protection has announced.

The number will add on to the existing 70,134 beneficiaries to attain Ministry’s target of 150,000 households by the end of 2014.

The LEAP is a social cash transfer programme which provides cash and health insurance to extremely poor households across Ghana to alleviate short-term poverty and encourage long-term human capital development. The programme is currently operating in 100 Districts in the ten regions of the country.

Since 2013 when Mrs. Lithur assumed office, the beneficiaries had remained at 70,134. She thus stated: “We will expand and add on 80, 000 households to reach the 150,000 mark by the end of the year.”

The Minister made these known during an engagement with the media on social protection in Accra.

Government, she said, was prioritising social protection because such initiatives would help reduce poverty, promote inclusive growth and address inequalities.

“When we target the extremely poor for social protection, state resources are more equitably distributed and it helps to break the inter –generational cycle of poverty in Ghana,” the Minister pointed out. She said policy and legal frameworks were being worked on to ensure the sustainability of social protection interventions in the country.

She noted that Ghana was ahead of many countries in Africa in respect of social interventions and a fact that was acknowledged during the Africa Union meeting on social protection in Cape Town, South Africa, in April this year.

“I’m confident that as we consolidate and strengthen our social protection systems to provide safety net that ensure inclusiveness, many more excluded and vulnerable would enjoy a better life, thereby drastically reducing if not eradicating poverty in our country,” she added.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Social welfare and State Enterprises, Joseph Amenewode, stressed the importance of social protection and the need for Ghana as a country to make it a law. “We should be thinking of having a legislation on social protection to make it binding on all governments to implement it.” He also called on the media to push the agenda for social protection

LEAP implementation went through a trial phase in March 2008 and then began expanding gradually through 2009 and 2010. As of July 2013, the programme had reached over 70,000 households across Ghana with an annual expenditure of approximately US$20m.

The programme is funded from general revenues of the Government of Ghana (50 percent), donations from DFID and a loan from the World Bank. It is the flagship programme of Ghana's National Social Protection Strategy and is implemented by the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP)