Some communities in the Upper East Region have over the past five years been empowered to rehabilitate 86 dams, embark upon 97 Climate Change intervention subprojects and the rehabilitation of 349.1km feeder roads.

The Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) together with the district assemblies and other collaborating institutions such as Irrigation Development Authority, Department of Feeder Roads and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture assisted the communities.

Mrs Adwoa Asotia-Boakye, the Upper East Regional Coordinator of GSOP, said this when she accompanied Mr Henry G.R. Karali, the World Bank Country Director to Ghana, on a working visit to some of the subprojects of  the  Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) in  the Upper East Region.

The visit was to ascertain how the Project was affecting the livelihoods of the beneficiary communities.

The implementation of GSOP, which begun in the region in 2011, is a Government of Ghana and World Bank funded intervention which seeks to deepen social protection efforts in the country.

The project aims at improving social protection programmes and providing income support to poor households through the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) grants and the Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) infrastructure in targeted districts.

Under the LIPW component of the Project, the beneficiaries are engaged in climate change mitigation activities such as re-afforestation and the establishment of fruit tree plantations, the rehabilitation of small earth dams/dugouts and the rehabilitation of feeder roads.

The first point of call by the World Bank Country Director was the seven hectares mango plantation sub project at Targanga in the Garu-Tempane District where he interacted with some of the beneficiaries and the chief of the area.

Briefing Mr Karali and his team, Mrs Asotia-Boakye, said the four year mango plantation project have been handed over to the District Assembly and the beneficiary community.

She said the total cost of the project was GH¢262,769.64 out of which GH¢191, 821.00 was paid as wages to the 596 beneficiaries who participated in the project.  

Nab Akudug Aleem, the Chief of Targanga, said the beneficiaries received wages for a period of three years from the Project and have harvested the fruits on a number of occasions.

The proceeds, he said, have been lodged into an account they had opened at a rural bank in the area.  Another subproject the team visited was the Zesiri Small Earth Dam where 283 beneficiaries predominantly women were working to rehabilitate the dam.