The districts are the Shai-Osudoku and Ningo Prampram in the Greater Accra Region.
The five-year cash transfer programme for extremely poor pregnant women was designed and implemented alongside the LEAP programme to reduce poverty and improve child health related services.
Mrs Della Sowah, the Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, said the project had empowered women and improved the nutritional status of children.
She said the programme, aside stimulating the active involvement of beneficiaries in economic activities, had also expanded their self-esteem and helped reduce economic dependency in the family.
Mrs Sowah said the project’s intervention which provided health transfer for extremely poor pregnant women had proved that the health transfer did not only bother on the ethical questions of saving lives but defended human investments by combating hunger and poverty.
She said the government was committed to developing social interventions for the poorest segment of the population, adding that “our responsibility as a Ministry is to enhance others in social protection programmes”.
Speaking on upcoming projects, she said as a result of the pilot programme, the ILO office in Ghana had initiated and was implementing a new maternal social protection programme, whereas the Ministry together with its partners were also initializing a new maternal and child support social protection programme called the “LEAP One Thousand’’.
Mrs Sowah said under the programme, a cash transfer would be provided to enhance lives of poor pregnant women and lactating mothers from the onset of pregnancy till the child was two years old.
Mr Emmanuel Lartey, District Chief Executive of Shai-Osudoku, described the project as one of the most important social interventions introduced in the country.
He said the piloted project had contributed towards the socio-economic development in the two districts and effective collaboration of relevant bodies was a key factor to the achievement.
Mr Lartey expressed excitement on the decision by the organisation to extend the GLST project for another five years to other parts of the country and appealed for more social interventions in the Shai-Osudoku District.
