National Social Protection Strategy: Investing in People.

The National Social Protection Strategy is a national strategy for Ghana developed by the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment that will be implemented as a pilot project for a period of five years from 2007 to 2012. The vision of the Strategy is to create a society in which citizens are duly empowered with the capacity to realize their rights and responsibilities to manage social, economic, political and cultural shocks. Particularly, the Strategy will seek to empower the extreme poor and other vulnerable populations through the implementation of social grants, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Social Grants Programme.
The Strategy aims at eliminating hunger and food insecurity in the country. To this end it aims to provide cash transfers to the extreme poor with no alternative means of meeting their subsistence needs, resulting in the reduction of extreme poverty, hunger and starvation among the most severely disabled and incapacitated persons living with disabilities; and the stimulation of access to social services (health and education in particular) and to smoothing consumption levels and demand of the extreme poor orphans and vulnerable children.
As mentioned, the main objective of the Programme is to empower the extreme poor and other vulnerable populations (such as pregnant women and lactating mothers with AIDS) through the implementation of social grants. The document adresses poverty in general and gives specific attention to rural population. In particular, the Programme will provide social grants for subsistence farmers and fisher folk to promote food security and their livelihood.
The document also aims at increasing the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, giving special attention to vulnerable groups. It defines the risks and shocks that are the primary causes of vulnerability and extreme poverty in Ghana. They include macro-economic shocks, natural and man-made disasters, health shocks (malnutrition and diseases).
The implementation of the Strategy will be led by the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment and the Department of Social Welfare, and involved relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies.