Three clusters of rural communities in the Eastern Region of Ghana are the first in Africa to have been deemed self-reliant by The Hunger Project (THP), an international organisation working to eradicate global hunger by 2030.

Leading members and investors of the organisation met this week to tour the communities that have transitioned from aid-dependent under the project to self-sustaining, ending the week with a press conference Friday at the Ellking Hotel in Accra, where the impacts of the project were highlighted.

Atubikrom, Akotekrom and Nsuta-Aweregya are the three community clusters deemed to have achieved ‘sustainable self-reliance’ based on a set of 50 targets outlined by the THP, including a 58 percent increase in the portion of households using sanitation measures and a 98 percent increase in the portion of children attending secondary school.

Åsa Skogström Feldt, the project’s global president and CEO, said the success of the three community clusters shows that through grassroots aid and partnerships, poverty and hunger can be effectively reduced.

THP, founded in 1977, uses what it calls the Epicentre Strategy (ES) to empower communities to transition from poverty to sustainable self-reliance. Under the ES, communities are partnered into focus areas— epicentres— that work together to combine skills and resources.

THP also works with national and local governments to bring improved services in health and education. It currently has 118 such epicentres in Africa, 45 of which are in Ghana, but no others have yet achieved self-reliance.

THP which opened its first Ghana epicentres in 1996 works to educate community members on sustainable, more efficient agricultural methods, integrates improved sanitation services and enhances the access and quality of education.

Skogström Feldt said that THP is different from many other aid programmes; in that it employs local leaders to spearhead projects and teach communities to use their own resources as a means of self-reliance.

“It was the power of shifting your mindset and going into action and being committed that you are the one who can change your conditions that made this project successful,” she said.

Approximately 22,928 people living in the three epicentres benefitted directly from the project, but Samuel Afrane, Ghana’s country director of THP, said that individuals in nearby villages have also learned from the project as a result of improved partnerships.

He added that a key element to the project was its focus on women empowerment. Each epicentre in Ghana has a microfinance programme, some of which have become credit unions which have allowed women to establish businesses and achieve financial independence.

Mr Afrane added that there was still much work to be done. THP currently operates in five of Ghana’s 10 regions, and it does not operate at all in the Northern Region, one of the poorest in the country.
He said THP has been working with organisations there, such as the Danish NGO Ibis, to adopt the ES as a way of improving some of Ghana’s poorest communities.