The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo has called on government agencies to collaborate with researchers at the University in the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of social protection policies.

She said that such collaboration will seal leakages identified in the implementation of social protection policies in the country.

Speaking at the 2021 University of Ghana Alumni Lecture, Prof. Amfo warned that Ghana “will be literally pushing money down the drain” if social protection policies, implemented by the government, are not properly evaluated.

“One effective way of monitoring will be to collaborate with researchers because we will have to rely on credible data that will allow us to graduate persons who are on these policies because essentially what we have is social assistance. Here at the University of Ghana, we have many brilliant researchers across our institutes, centres and departments,” she said on Thursday.

“We do have the expertise to provide the credible data that will first inform the policy, its implementation and then its monitoring and evaluation so that we are able to see productive use of our monies,” Prof. Appiah Amfo added.

Her statement comes after the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, called for measures to be developed to address the poor coordination mechanism that was affecting social protection policies in the country.

Delivering the lecture, titled “Social Protection in Ghana: Are we on track?” the former University of Ghana lecturer admitted that some of the programmes that were still being run were facing challenges.

Some of these challenges, according to her, include budgetary constraints and targeting inaccuracies.  

Particularly on the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, Frema Osei-Opare said that there was an “urgent need to develop and implement an exit and graduation strategy to create more room for others to benefit from the intervention.”

She also added that even though the lives of some beneficiaries had improved significantly due to consistent support, it was difficult for such individuals to be identified and graduated from the programme.

Prof. Appiah Amfo commended successive governments for the implementation of such programmes.

She said that it was one of the various ways that we are able to bridge equality gaps as well as overcome poverty.