The Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF) has formed a new media accountability network called the Media Network on Social Protection (MENSOP) to keenly identify and monitor all social protection programmes in Ghana and hold Government and other duty bearers accountable and make them highly responsive to the needs of the beneficiaries.
MENSOP was also formed to empower social protection beneficiaries with adequate and relevant information and guidelines so that they can hold the state and providers of other social interventions accountable.
A joint statement issued by MENSOP and GLOMEF in Sunyani, regretted that Ghana undoubtedly has the large number of Social Protection interventions but their impact after many years are yet to be felt.
Social Protection is a range of actions carried out by a state and other parties in response to vulnerability and poverty which seeks to guarantee relief from destitution for the vulnerable in society. It consists of access to basic essential healthcare for all, with particular attention to maternal health, minimum income security to access the basic needs of life for children, minimum income security for people in working age and minimum income security for older persons.
Some social intervention programmes currently being implemented in Ghana include the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty, a cash transfer system to poor households; Ghana School Feeding Program, to provide food to children at school; the National Health Insurance Scheme, a form of national health insurance established by the Government of Ghana, with a goal of providing equitable access and financial coverage for basic healthcare services to Ghanaian citizens, the Free Senior High School policy, the Capitation Grant among others.
Ghana has developed a National Social Protection Policy through the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to guide the consistent and systematic provision of these relevant programmes aimed at poverty reduction and the provision of relief for sections of the Ghanaian society who, for any reason, are unable to provide for themselves among others.
However, most of these social interventions or programmes are bedeviled with concentrated politicization, discriminations, poor targeting, corruption, poor monitoring and diversion of funds among others.
The statement by MENSOP and GLOMEF therefore urged the government to adopt a more preventive, transformational and catalytic approach to progressively achieve social protection for all.
The Media Network on Social Protection regretted how the vulnerable groups in Ghana continue to remain vulnerable and extremely poor in spite of the numerous social protection interventions by the government and its partners.
The network is also advocating for equality and equity in the social status of the people and a Ghana that drives a national development aspiration of producing a knowledgeable, empowered, highly productive and healthy population with the capacity to drive and sustain the socio-economic transformation of the country.
According to the statement, a contemporary system of social protection in Ghana has the potential to significantly impact incomes, equitable development, and increased access to social services for the extreme poor and vulnerable.
“The Ghanaian socio-economic situation is in transition and requires strategic interventions to leverage available opportunities. The transformation Ghana is undergoing includes its transition to middle-income country status; information and communication advancement arising from the mobile telephony revolution; increasing urbanization; and the changes in community, cultural and family arrangementsâ€.
“However, given the persisting challenges that social protection in Ghana has faced, questions have been raised as to whether these interventions and the government’s rationale for initiating them have taken adequate cognizance of the needs of the people intended to benefit from them; or whether the rights of Ghanaians to social protection has informed the Government’s priority interventionsâ€.
Some of these challenges include adequate and timely financing, concerns about targeting, exclusion and inclusion errors, expansion of programmes, coordination, monitoring amongst others.
LEAP beneficiaries
According to MENSOP, several questions have also been asked about the extent to which social protection programme beneficiaries have been empowered to hold the state and service providers accountable and to make them responsive to their needs.
The statement asked at what extent has social accountability measures such as transparency, communication, and meaningful participation been incorporated into social programme design and delivery?
It said vibrant civil society organizations, active workers’ organizations and an informed media are needed to increase the opportunities for dialogue, social accountability and pursuit of responsive development.
It is against this background, the MENSOP was formed by Global Media Foundation to empower social protection beneficiaries and to hold the state and service providers accountable as well as to make them responsive to their needs.
The vision of MENSOP is “an informed media empowered to hold the state and service providers accountable as well as to make them responsive to the needs of social protection beneficiaries.
The social protection policy, according to MENSOP, should seek to increase the ability of the extreme poor to meet their basic needs through increasing access to livelihood opportunities and other social protection mechanisms.
It should further be aimed at delivering a well-coordinated, inter-sectoral social protection system enabling people to live in dignity through income support, livelihoods empowerment and improved access to systems of basic services.
 
, December 18, 2019