Insights

If you were mandated to tackle poverty, where would you start: income gaps, living standards, employment opportunities or essential services? Ghana chose LEAP, a Social Cash Transfer scheme that credits extreme poor households with cash every two months and provides access to key services. This policy’s delivery package tells a fascinating story of how inherent complexities can lead to new opportunities. These lessons align with 3 ways of working at Daatchi. We share these in the hopes that you too can distil possibilities from challenges.

 The multifaceted nature of poverty and its many expressions in society is one that makes poverty eradication exceptionally convoluted. Where there is also limited budget, little record on who to receive state assistance, and physical barriers to distributing said assistance, a difficult problem seems even more challenging. Yet, Ghana found a workaround to this exact set of constraints through its Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme. Little wonder that LEAP’s approach has piqued interests and created understudies from several countries in Africa and beyond. Our analysis reveals ways LEAP has reimagined major complications, reiterated and made strides. 

In the last two decades, Ghana graduated from Heavily Indebted Poor Country status to Lower-Middle Income status. The government’s main approach to poverty alleviation also changed: the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (I) of 2002 that provided basic services to the poor gradually gave way to the National Social Protection Strategy. The new strategy indicated that cash contributions would be made to ‘extreme poor’ households, that various social protection initiatives would be linked in a coherent manner, and that human capital development would be used as a tool for better living standards. 

This shift was because the country wanted to embed human capital development in its social protection strategy as an avenue to securing higher living standards and middle-income status by 2015. The challenge was how to design a poverty alleviation offering that provided necessities and human capital development in a cost-wise manner. In 2008, LEAP was launched as the cornerstone programme to address this challenge.

1. Success on the ground begins with designing for that ground

As against the earlier strategy which was mainly funded by donors, LEAP was being funded predominantly by the government which had just shaken off the HIPC tag. With its tight public purse and a big mandate, the LEAP team did three things: 

1. Used local context to define poverty and would-be targets 

2. Framed how the cash transfers could directly address beneficiaries' present needs 

3. Considered how to reduce operational costs without sacrificing the larger vision

Expenditure assumptions by LEAP Project staff that the extreme poor could not afford three-square meals on their own was supported by findings on “consumption-related poverty” on the ground. This narrowed the focus of the cash transfers. Apart from income levels, the limited budgets necessitated layering in additional angles of vulnerability and physical location of target recipients. This way, transfers would go to households highest on the pecking order by looking at the poorest districts per region and whether a household member had a disability, was 65 years or older, an orphaned or vulnerable child.

With that grounding, it was decided that the first cash transfers should meet 20% of the expenditure of selected households since they were assisting with ‘basic needs’. Findings from the field also revealed that unexpected medical costs were a major cause of household financial difficulty so complementary access to the National Health Insurance Scheme was also negotiated for all selected households. Each transfer had operational implications. Because of this, transfers were to be made every two months in order to reduce transaction fees and logistical costs. The logic was that this way, available budgets would predominantly go to the households rather than being sacrificed to banking fees.

At Daatchi we advise organizations that success on the ground begins with designing for that ground, and to put plans in motion even if it means starting small. Our firm, for instance, began with a small team of 3 experts. The team needed to be resourceful, hone their powers of observation, test ideas quickly and to pivot just as fast. Small beginnings build grit, creative thinking and focus in an incomparable way.

2. There is no shame in changing tact; let data inform your iterations

Following early payment cycles, it became evident that  some households were the victims of exclusion errors. At the time, there was sparse information on vulnerable households and communities across Ghana. Given this constraint in identifying potential recipients, the LEAP enrolment cycle used community-based targeting and focal persons who were conversant with the ins and outs of a relevant geographic zone to identify which households met qualifying criteria. Feedback indicated that blindspots in this process were leading to the exclusions. In response, the LEAP team made the following adjustments:

1. Making open invitations to participate in selection processes in relevant districts

2. Using a proxy-means test informed by the Ghana Living Standards Survey to sieve which households met criteria

3. Organizing community durbars to announce households selected for enrolment and as an avenue for citizens to raise any concerns about these

These changes had several implications. First, perceptions that one needed to know someone to qualify for LEAP gradually changed. Second, households were able to take the initiative and opt in to LEAP selection processes themselves, widening the net for potential beneficiaries. Third, the context-relevant questions used in the proxy-means tests were accommodative of workers in the informal sector, and helped to create a common scale for determining who was a match for LEAP. At the same time, community durbars deepened the sense that all those in a target location owned the process and could make their voices heard.

In addition to these beneficiary selection and validation changes, the mode of LEAP cash distribution changed in 2015. Originally, LEAP households received cash via post. However, feedback indicated that transfers via post were sometimes intercepted by individuals other than the target households, and the length of time between the dates payments were sent and when received were extreme pain points that needed addressing. In answer, a contract was brokered with Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GHIPSS) so that households provided their biometric details during enrolment and were registered to GHIPSS’ eZwich system. Local banks were also selected for grant delivery. With these changes, beneficiaries who were previously ‘unbanked’ could physically attend Participatory Financial Institutions that were nearest in proximity, withdraw their cash transfers themselves and also have access to other financial services. As a security measure, only nominated household members whose biometrics matched those recorded during LEAP enrolment would be able to collect the cash transfers. An outcome of this cash distribution cycle was a dataset that it allowed LEAP to have reliable data on which households had not utilized transfers for prolonged periods, and to organize follow-ups.

One of the points we share with Daatchi clients is the need to live out their dedication to continuously improving end users’ service experiences. We believe that there is no shame in changing tact and making needed improvements. To find these, physically observing how a service is used, receiving real-time feedback and building empathy for end users are priceless.

3. Money matters but so does finding partners who bring a strength you don't have

Since the vision of Ghana’s social protection strategy was one that linked up the various initiatives, was coherent, efficient and ultimately led to human capital development, it was critical to identify opportunities for interagency involvement in LEAP. Over the years, the LEAP Management Secretariat (LMS) and its parent ministry, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection have brokered the following national agency connections:

1. The Ghana Statistical Service provides poverty mapping to assist with geographical targeting of LEAP recipients while the Ghana National Household Registry collects data on all vulnerable households

2. The Department of Social Welfare lends manpower across every region in Ghana while the Social Welfare and Community Development gives ground-level support at the district level. This is particularly important since LEAP has one office in the country and this is based in Accra, Ghana’s capital

3. The National Health Service provides complementary health insurance to over 83% of LEAP households

Outside of the state institutions, Ghana has ongoing relationships with organizations like the World Food Programme, UNICEF, World Bank and FCDO. These institutions have played different roles across the years. The World Food Program has provided logistics and capacity building support, UNICEF has given technical assistance and was the organization that recommended including a fourth LEAP eligibility category (pregnant women or mothers with child under 1 year), and the World Bank has given grants and when undertaking public goods projects, gives priority to LEAP households for wage earning opportunities. Meanwhile, the Government of Ghana has consistently stayed as the majority financier of LEAP. As at 2024, for example, it was spending approximately GHS 136m every 2 months on LEAP.

While it can be tempting to push ahead with an initiative without bringing others along, there are tangible benefits for an organization that clearly envisions the end goal, and is able to identify which partnerships can take their efforts further. This is more than an exercise in theory. Successful partnerships will require being willing to find common ground; clearly establishing remits; sharing information, wins and weaknesses; and a steady commitment to working together. It is hard but fulfilling work.

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