Gender Ministry begins registering the poor and vulnerable

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has launched the maiden Ghana National Household Registry (GNHR) as part of efforts to alleviate poverty in the country.

Taking her turn at the ‘Meet the Press’ series in Accra, sector minister Nana Oye Lithur noted that the registry aims at improving the efficiency of social intervention programmes.

Addressing journalists, Gender Minister Nana Oye Lithur said the registry seeks to identify the poor and vulnerable in society and create timely social intervention programmes for them.

She said the first phase had already begun in the Upper West Region with the second phase expected to commence in the Upper East and Northern regions. It began in August, she indicated.

The GNHR is a unit mandated to establish a single national household register for poor and vulnerable households with earmarked funds from the World Bank. It seeks to create an all-inclusive social protection programme.

In spite of successes chalked by the Ministry, the minister outlined inadequate office space, overlapping policies of ministries and inadequate requisite staff as some of the challenges facing the ministry.