The Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection has embarked on processes of developing input for social protection bill to among others things provide legal backing to protect the right of the vulnerable as well as guide operations of Social Protection in the country.
The sector Minister, Hon. Otiko Afisah Djaba, while speaking at a meeting with Faith -Based Organizations in the Delivery of Social Protection in Ghana, informed participants that her outfit had begun a technical review and stakeholder consultations “on our draft SP Bill, after which the Attorney General’s Department will do another revision to enable us submit to cabinet for consideration and subsequently to Parliament this year.”
“So, I invite all of you present here and our stakeholders in Ghana to submit their input to the ministry for consideration,” Hon. Djaba added.
The meeting, which was held in Accra recently on the theme: Mainstreaming Social Protection into the Activities of Faith Based Organizations (FBOs) in Ghana sought to develop a better collaboration and partnership based organizations to develop a better collaboration and partnership with faith based organization to enable the mainstreaming of social protection and deliver on national and international obligations towards the most vulnerable to ensure we leave nobody out or behind.
The National Social Protection Policy was formulated and launched in June 2016 to coordinate and provide holistic, coherent social protection in Ghana. However, it was recognized that to sustain the process and assure social protection interventions of reliable and adequate funding, a social protection law would be required. Such a law would also clarify processes and make actionable, rights of Ghanaians and sanctions to be applied as shall be required.
The Gender Ministry submitted the Social Protection Drafting Instructions to the Attorney Gs Department in 2016 which was subsequently translated into the first draft social protection Bill. The Ministry together with the Social Protection Bill Sub-committee reviewed the Draft Bill and submitted feedback to the AGs Department for further review. A second draft Bill has been received by the Ministry this year for further review and consultations. It is in this respect that the Ministry seeks to organize systematic consultations with all key stakeholders to garner inputs on the second draft bill to enable final review and revision by the Attorneys General’s Department.
The Minister explained that the meeting was meant to progress from the talk to action and develop collaborative strategies, activities and mechanisms to actualize the deliverables as stated in the National social protection policy.
According to her, the partnership between the ministry and FBOs would help address the numerous challenges facing the extremely poor, the vulnerable and excluded in a more meaningful and effective way.
She indicated that social protection has been identified as a strategic tool and reliable for addressing poverty, vulnerability exclusion which Ghana has also adopted.
She said because of their invariable support, the ministry identifies FBOs as key stakeholders in achieving SGDs by mainstreaming social protection into their religious policies, programs and activities.
“All our people are found in your respective churches, mosques and traditional setting and we need your collaboration to bring social protection delivery to the grassroots in a more meaningful way,” she requested.
By: Mohammed Suleman
