Access to complementary services under Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme in the Nadowli-Kaleo District

ABSTRACT

Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), a social assistance programme, aims to reduce poverty and vulnerability. To this end, complementary services accompany such programmes to accelerate the process. However, a few studies have concentrated on access to complementary services. As such, this study focuses on investigating access to LEAP complementary services employing the mixed-methods design. Data were collected from 229 LEAP beneficiaries and LEAP programme implementers using questionnaires and an interview guide. The analysis of data involved descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. The study found that national health insurance (NHI), school feeding, the education capitation grant, and labour-intensive public works were the LEAP complementary services accessed although skewed to NHI. The barriers to access to complementary services included unavailability of services, ignorance of entitlement, inability to enforce the memorandum of understanding, and poor institutional coordination. To improve access to complementary services, sensitisation and enforcement of memorandum of understanding are vital.

KEYWORDS:

• Complementary services
• access
• awareness
• barriers
• LEAP
• Ghana

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohammed Sulemana

Mohammed Sulemana is an Associate Professor at SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies. Local governance, poverty and inequality, social protection, social policy, rural development, and conflict management are some of his research interests.

Moses Naiim Fuseini

Moses Naiim Fuseini has a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Cape, Ghana. He is a lecturer in the Department of Public Policy and Management, SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies. Poverty, inequality, social protection, social policy, livelihoods, rural development, and conflict management are some of his research interests.

Biliguo Shirazudeen

Mr. Biliguo Shirazudeen is a Postgraduate student in Development Management at the University for Development Studies, Wa Campus.