More to benefit from LEAP

THE Government has initiated moves to extend the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme to parents of 5,000 children in 470 communities of 47 district in cocoa growing areas in Ghana.
The initiative was adopted in conformity with the National Programme for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa (NPECLC) in Ghana.
The move, according to the Chief Director for the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, Mr Emmanuel A. Akuffo, who made this known at the 7th partners forum on the NPECLC in Accra last Tuesday, was to assist cocoa farmers to properly cater for the education of their children as well as their own socio-economic enhancement.
He said the ministry, in support of the NPECLC, had drawn up two key programmes in areas where poverty was severe, but had realised that the supply of school uniforms alone, for example, was not enough to alleviate poverty in those areas.
To address some of these challenges, he indicated that the ministry had seen the need to extend the LEAP programme to those areas to ensure that the children attended school regularly.
He disclosed that about 54 per cent of children in cocoa producing regions in Ghana, including Western, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central and the Volta regions could neither read nor write.
Mr Akuffo, therefore, called on the National Steering Committee of the NPECLC and its partners, including district assemblies and other non-governmental organisations, to put in place effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to mitigate these challenges.
In 2006, the government established the NPECLC under the then Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment with a mandate to conduct activities that would reduce and finally eliminate the worst forms of child labour in cocoa growing sectors by 2011.
In pursuant of this goal, the NPECLC and its partners were charged to strengthen the legal framework for dealing with the Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL), enhance the knowledge-base of it, and develop interventions to eliminate them.
The National Manager of NPECLC, Mrs Rita Owusu-Amankwah, gave an overview of the existing guidelines and mechanisms for strengthening the activities of partners, their roles and responsibilities and the benefits of compliance with their co-ordination framework.
To strengthen the capacity of partners, she said partners were grouped according to the particular work they were engaged in, in cocoa growing areas.“Working groups will meet separately, in addition to the three annual meetings, and the three thematic working groups identified include child protection, socio-economic enhancement and education,” she stated.
The purpose of the co-ordination, she said, was to ensure that all partners spoke with one voice to avoid distortion of facts, reduce duplication of work and to maximise their resources by identifying intervention gaps.
“Partners, particularly district assemblies, need to make financial contributions to the implementation of interventions in their districts. Partners need to contribute to the capacity building of responsible agencies, and also submit their reports to the NPECLC secretariat on a quarterly basis,” she added.
Dr Daniel Bruce Sarpong, an Executive Member of the Community-Based Child Labour Monitoring System, said under the auspices of NPECLC, they conducted two pilot surveys in six and 15 districts in 2006 and 2007 respectively, as part of the cocoa certification process.
The result of the two surveys, he said, provided them with information to help address some of the challenges on child labour issues in cocoa production in Ghana.
“In the 2007/2008 cocoa season, the survey was scaled up to cover 15 districts from all cocoa growing areas, including the six districts covered during the pilot survey, and that accounted for 60 per cent of the national cocoa production,” he stated and noted that in all, 3,452 children aged between 5 and 17 years were interviewed during the survey.