The Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has launched the Ghana National Household Registry (GNHR), in Accra.

The GNHR, initiated by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, involves the registration of households and collection of basic information on their socio-economic status to assist social protection programmes.

Launching the registry, Mr Amissah-Arthur underscored the need for social protection programmes to eliminate pockets of poverty in the country.

According to him, Ghana’s poverty reduction since 1991 from 36.5% to 8.4% in 2013 was largely attributed to its social protection programmes.

He, however said, the weakness in monitoring poverty reduction was due to the absence of a national household registry.

In a solidarity message from the Ministry of Finance, Deputy Minister, Mrs Mona Quartey, hinted that government had significantly increased its pro-poor spending in a bid to address income inequality and reduce poverty.

She added that to help mitigate any negative impact of the fiscal adjustments the country was currently implementing, government had committed to spend a minimum of GH¢1.3 billion on social protection.

While commending the Gender Ministry for the initiative, Mrs Quartey urged the ministry to involve the Ghana Statistical Service in the targeting process, since they already have the poverty maps which could effectively complement the work of the targeting unit in charge of the implementation of the national household registry.

The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, said with a social protection policy, legal and institutional arrangements as well as the targeting unit firmly in place, social protection in Ghana was ready to single handedly contribute to the elimination of all forms of poverty.

myjoyonline.com