Women’s Integrated Development Organization
P. O. Box 229 Techiman, BER, Ghana.
Website: www.widogh.org
Email: info@widogh.org
Executive Summary
This brief presents the results of research conducted by the Women’s Integrated Development Organization in the Bono East and Upper West regions on the benefits and impacts of COVID-19 recovery programs on 2000 women, youth and people with disabilities (PWDs). The study revealed that there was generally a low level of awareness and participation of vulnerable groups in the CAPBuSS program. This was attributed to weak collaboration between the Ghana Enterprises Agency and the National Commission for Civic Education in the program implementation.
Additionally, the provision of free meals for JHS candidates was considered
as the most relevant and beneficial government COVID 19 intervention for vulnerable people.
However, the free water intervention was considered less relevant, since most vulnerable people in the rural areas did not even have access to pipe-borne water. The brief highlights both successes and policy implementation gaps, particularly in relation to equity of delivery. It advocates for greater inter-agency collaboration to engender effective targeting of vulnerable
people in ongoing social and business support programs, by the Ghana Enterprises Agency. It makes recommendations to be considered by the Ghana Enterprises Agency, the Departments of Agriculture and the District Assemblies as follows:
❖ Inter-agency collaboration among the Ghana Enterprises Agency, NCCE and
Departments of Social Welfare would be key to engender effective targeting of
vulnerable people in ongoing social and business support programs as part of the
COVID-19 responses.
❖ The District Assemblies, through the Departments of Agriculture and Departments of Social Welfare, should set aside a quota of inputs/service support under the agriculture component of CARES programme to be supplied to identify vulnerable groups.
❖ The GEA should engage leaders of PWDs and women groups to facilitate their registration and participation in it's business support programs.
Context
In Ghana, women, PWDs and the youth are disadvantaged, albeit differently, when it comes to economic opportunities and the ability to earn income. This is variously accounted for by lack of access to productive resources, including finances, unemployment and a social system that
does not support the economic empowerment of these groups. They are therefore more vulnerable to economic shocks. Formal Government social safety nets programmes are inadequate to cushion such people in times of shocks because they have rigid inclusion criteria
and limited coverage.
The novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has become a global epidemic, hit Ghana on 12 March 2020. Several studiesii have reported significant economic impact of COVID-19 on incomes and livelihoods of Ghanaians. For example, 48% of Ghanaians depleted
their savings to pay for food, healthcare, or other expenses since February, 2020general poverty increased from 20.5% to 34.0% by November 2020, while inequality increased from 42.1% to 47.5%)
Gender and locational heterogeneities exist regarding the impact of COVID-19, with females and rural dwellers mostly disadvantagedv. A recent multi-country studyvi reports that about 22 million people in Ghana, making up about two-thirds of the population, experienced a decrease in household income because of the pandemic. The report stressed that poorer households are pushed deeper into poverty. Thus, the vulnerable groups (women, PWDs and youth), who form the bulk of those living below the poverty line, had been unequally affected by COVID-19 and were more unable to respond effectively to the shocks.
Relevant Ghana Government COVID-19 Policy Responses
To address the negative consequences of the pandemic and the lockdown and ease the burden especially for vulnerable people, the Government announced several measures. They ranged from providing free water and free meals for JHS candidates to an electricity rebate.
Coronavirus Alleviation Program Business Support Scheme (CAPBuSS) with GHC 600
million funding from Government was introduced to provide loans to cushion Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) that dominate the informal economic sector from the impacts of COVID-19. The CAPBuSS aimed to prevent or reverse job and income losses to
persons employed in the SME sector. Additionally, food rations were provided for some beneficiaries of the country’s largest cash transfer programme, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme (LEAP). Ultimately, the government developed the Covid-19 Alleviation and Revitalization of Enterprises Support (CARES) programme.
Beneficiary reach and impacts on vulnerable people
Government’s interventions to alleviate the hardships occasioned by COVID-19 were germane and well-intended. They largely addressed some pressing needs of a good number of Ghanaians. The provision of free water targeted all Ghanaians in both urban and rural areas, though the intention was to make water more accessible to the poor, since it was expected that there would be an upsurge in the domestic use of water for regular handwashing and general sanitation as a safety practice in response to COVID-19. However, as a measure to ameliorate the economic hardships of the people, it was not as effective in targeting the most vulnerable.
Free water was only enjoyed by those whose source of water is pipe-borne and provided by the Ghana Water Company Limited or private water providers registered on the free water scheme.
Poorer people living in rural communities without access to pipe-borne water did not benefit from this intervention.
The electricity rebates were more effectively targeted, as they granted a 100% rebate for consumers on lifeline consumption (reasonably presumed to be poorer), while offering only 50% rebate to all others consuming above lifeline (mostly the middle and upper class). The Finance Ministry estimated that, some 4 million households benefitted from the electricity rebate.
The CAPBuS, which provided loans to small and medium Enterprises, was estimated to have benefitted about 64000 people (Mid-year Budget Review, 2020). The policy did not make any provisions for businesses owned by vulnerable people (women, PWDs and youth), even though the reports from government agencies indicated that CAPBuSS supported more women. The awareness creation and application process for the loan discriminated against those living in more rural area and the less literate, including those with disability. The application process was largely online with no special support package provided for PWDs and people in rural communities to apply.
The processes leading to the development of the CARES programme had limited participation of vulnerable groups. For instance, when the government conducted consultations during the development of the programme, several bodies were involved. Sadly none of the national
bodies of people with disabilities were consulted. Even the composition of the Technical Group that led the Inter-ministerial Group to develop the CARES programme, did not include officers
from the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection. This is the ministry that would have amplified the needs of vulnerable people in such important programme development processes. In summary, the implementation of these COVID-19 recovery interventions has only had very limited participation of vulnerable people at both the national and local level.
Research Findings
A survey was conducted in the Bono East and Upper West regions of Ghana on the experiences of vulnerable people (women, PWDs and youth) on Government’s COVID-19 alleviation interventions. The objective of the study was to get updated information on the experiences of vulnerable groups on government’s COVID 19 interventions. It documented citizens’ feedback and recommendations for improving current and future COVID-19 interventions. The study chose four interventions considered to be more relevant for vulnerable people, that is, free
water, electricity subsidies, free meals for JHS candidates and CAPBuSS. Scorecards were used to engage 2000 women, PWDs and youth to assess these selected interventions.
Low level of awareness of the CAPBuSS intervention and inability of vulnerable people to benefit.
The survey and Scorecard process revealed that the CAPBuSS was largely unknown to most vulnerable people. Only 38% of vulnerable people in the two study regions had heard about the intervention as at the time of the study. There was a regional disparity in awareness levels
between the two regions. While Upper West had an awareness rate of 20.6%, the Bono East region a higher awareness rate of 58.4%. This disparity is attributable to the fact that the selected districts in the Bono East were more urban. Thus, they had more access to Television, through which much of the advertisement on the programs were aired. Those who knew about it bemoaned the difficulty they faced in attempting to apply for support. As a result, most vulnerable people did not benefit from the CAPPBuSS loan support. It was further revealed that 9.7% of respondents in the Bono East region applied for the CAP BuSS, while 1.8%
respondents in the Upper West Region applied. Out of the number of respondents that applied for the loan, only 13.3% (3 people) [all from Bono East] got a payout as at the time of the survey. This has affected businesses owned by these group of people, most of whom have fallen on little savings and even their business capital to survive the economic impacts of the pandemic.
Weak collaboration between the GEA and NCCE in the implementation of the CAPBuSS.
The study revealed that there was little or no collaboration at all between the Ghana Enterprise Agency and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) in the implementation of the CAPBuSS, hence the low awareness level of the intervention. The NCCE, which is better placed to ensure awareness creation about the program was not involved to do so. The officials from the GEA and NCCE, who participated in the survey and scorecards processes admitted this weakness and committed to foster closer collaboration in implementing similar programs in the future.
Free Meals for JHS candidates was the most impactful intervention for vulnerable people.
Over 71% of the vulnerable groups involved in the study identified the provision of meals for their JHS wards who were to take their final examinations as the most impactful for them, rating it 4 out of 5. Though this intervention was very limited in duration, it was considered
most relevant and beneficial to vulnerable people, whose major burden at the time was how to feed their households. This was more so at a time when schools had been closed due to the pandemic and all children were home for a full academic year. This meant the school feeding
programme that provided some burden-sharing in feeding children wassuspended. Thus, parents were faced with feeding their entire households for a whole year. Most vulnerable people involved in the survey revealed that it was the first time they had all the members of their household (including children who were now home because of the closure of all schools) at home for such a long period of time.
Free water intervention was less relevant for vulnerable people
Vulnerable groups (women, PWDs and youth) do not think that Government’s intervention to provide citizens with free water was relevant to them. In their estimation, it was only useful to more privileged folks who live in bigger towns and had access to pipe-borne water. Some of the vulnerable people living in rural areas do not have access to clean water and obviously could not have benefitted from the free water intervention. This intervention was rated 2 on a scale of 1 to 5 during the scorecards process.
COVID-19 Policy Implementation Gaps
Equity: The COVID-19 alleviation interventions did not provide support equitably, since vulnerable people were less likely to benefit from the free water, electricity and CAPBuSS loan support.
Economic models suggest that electricity rebates have marginal impact on poverty because they are susceptible to ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ errors. This means that some people benefit, who should not, while others do not benefit, who should. On the other hand, free water was provided for up to 9 months, but this was limited to only those who had access to pipe-borne water mostly provided by Ghana Water Company Limited. However, vulnerable people living in rural areas mostly did not have access to pipe-borne water. They mostly depend on boreholes and in some cases, they do not even have access to any form of clean water, sharing sources of drinking water with animals. Since there were no separate interventions targeting these categories of people, it raises an issue of equity.
CAPBuSS did not consider the business needs of vulnerable people: The awareness creation and application processes of the CAPBuSS did not incorporate the needs of businesses owned by vulnerable people such as women and PWDs, who tend to be less literate and needed support to apply for the loans.
The awareness creation on the CAPBuSS was mostly done through television adverts and social media, unlike sensitizations on COVID-19 that used several media, including the use of information vans and other community-level channels that were more accessible by vulnerable groups. Due to this, general awareness about the scheme among vulnerable groups was very low.
Additionally, the application process was done online, either via a dedicated website or USSD code. This effectively excluded most vulnerable people (women and PWDs) from the process, since they tend to be less literate and do not have access to Information Technology facilities.
Support for such people to complete the application process was non-existent. As a result, the CAPBuSS intervention, though well-intended, was at best limited to elite SMEs that were already more resilient than those owned by vulnerable people.
Awareness and participation of vulnerable people in the COVID-19 recovery interventions, at both programming and implementation level, has been low. The result has been that some interventions that were intended to help these groups mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 have been deemed irrelevant and of limited benefits.
Recommendations
❖ The GEA should forge effective collaborations with the NCCE and Departments
of Social Welfare to rope in vulnerable people in its ongoing business support
programs.
❖ The NCCE and Information Services Department of the District Assemblies
should engage with the leaders of PWDs and women groups to increase awareness
of and participation of vulnerable groups in future government interventions.
❖ The District Assemblies, through the Departments of Agriculture and
Departments of Social Welfare, should set aside a quota of inputs/service support
under the agriculture component of CARES programme to be supplied to
identify vulnerable groups.
❖ Government, through its agencies, should consult identifiable disability groups at both national and local levels in future COVID-19 related programme
development to ensure that such programs capture the specific needs of
vulnerable groups.
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the support of the WIDO/Commonwealth COVID-19 Project for their invaluable contributions to this study. Special thanks to the District officers of the Ghana Enterprises Agency, Department of Social Welfare, NCCE and the Planning Units of the Bono East and Upper West Regions.
Funding
This work was undertaken with funding from the Commonwealth Foundation, under the ‘Enhancing Citizens’ Participation for Effective COVID-19 Responses’ project. However, the views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Commonwealth Foundation or its Board of Directors.
Fiscal Implications. AERC Working Paper. African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi.
II. Ibid; Chei Bukari, Gloria Essilfie, Millicent Abigail Aning-Agyei, Isaac Christopher Otoo, Christian Kyeremeh, Anthony Akwesi Owusu, Kofi Fosu Amuquandoh & Kpanja Ibrahim Bukari | Christian Nsiah (Reviewing editor) (2021) Impact of COVID-19 on poverty and living standards in Ghana: A micro-perspective, Cogent Economics & Finance, 9:1, DOI: 10.1080/23322039.2021.1879716 and
Adu-Ababio, K., R.Darko Osei, J. Pirttilä and P. Rattenhuber (2021). ‘Distributional Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Ghana’. WIDER Policy Brief, Vol. 4. Helsinki: UNU-WIDER.
III. The Innovation for Poverty Action (2020). Annual Report, 2020.
IV. Issahaku H. and Abu M. B (2020). COVID-19 in Ghana: Consequences for Poverty, and Fiscal Implications. AERC Working Paper. African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi.
V. Chei Bukari, Gloria Essilfie, Millicent Abigail Aning-Agyei, Isaac Christopher Otoo, Christian Kyeremeh, Anthony Akwesi Owusu, Kofi Fosu Amuquandoh & Kpanja Ibrahim Bukari | Christian Nsiah (Reviewing editor) (2021) Impact of COVID-19 on poverty and living standards in Ghana: A micro-perspective, Cogent Economics & Finance, 9:1, DOI:
10.1080/23322039.2021.1879716
VI. UNICEF and World Bank Study: Impacts of COVID 19 on the Welfare of Households with Children. GhanaWeb news report.
https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/New-report-shows-22-millionGhanaians-lost-income-due-to-COVID-19-1495061
This Project is Funded by the Commonwealth Foundation, UK.
![C/R: Woman, 58, Assassinated On Farm Land, Vagina And Head Chop Off At Fetteh Kakraba [VIDEO]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIoRgZyDVPmDByOyWNe9iaAb0e2Kul9HHyIZW6NK7_f2ovABucSc8PG8n1byacyXrMVRSlH9gNxtR1i_N78I7iUgQjbWqOKir2B02DxQOmhIULn2daJ1tvs4B8uSts1BDODUrG_f5FjC6/w72-h72-p-k-no-nu/1667294627639461-0.png)
 And Youth In COVID-19 Recovery Programs In Ghana){kind=link}
0 Comments