Service providers from State Agencies in the Nabdam District of the Upper East Region, have exposed Maltaaba Peasant Women Farmers’ Cooperative (MAPEWFAC) in the District on how to access government interventions such as the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJs, Livelihood Empowerment Programme Against Poverty (LEAP) among others.
The District Director of Agriculture, Mr. Rashid Imoro and the District Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Mr. Gabriel Azagsa at separate forums organized by MAPEWFAC in some communities in the district exposed the participants to the various government interventions and took them through how to access the interventions.
The project funded by the Star-Ghana Foundation with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation seeks to address systemic constraints to women and persons with disabilities who constitute the underserved population in many areas and to improve their access to policies and programs by government aimed at reducing poverty.
The District Director of Agriculture, who disclosed to the peasant women farmers that under the phase two of the PFJs there would be ready markets for farm produce, encouraged them to go into soya beans, sorghum and rice farming to help improve upon their livelihoods.
He pledged that his outfit would facilitate to ensure that more peasant women farmers are enrolled into the programme and told them that anytime they encounter any challenge in accessing the intervention, they should approach the Directorate for support.
He assured the rural farmers that government had put in place plans to help ensure that more of them benefited from the phase two of the Planting for Food and Jobs and encouraged the rural women farmers to venture into sorghum, soya beans, rice, maize farming.
He stated that a research has proven that irrespective of the fact that women contributed significantly to the growth of agriculture sector, only 20 percent women farmers benefited from the PFJs phase one and hinted that measures have been put in place to address such problem.
The District Director of Social Welfare, Mr. Azagsa , entreated the beneficiaries of the LEAP intervention to use the support given them judiciously and assured them of his outfit registration of more people to benefit from the programme.
The Director of Maltaaba women Farmers Cooperatives, Lydia Miyalla, explained that the Actions for Voice and Inclusive Development (AVID) Project seek to improve access to government intervention among women and Persons with Disabilities in the Nabdam and Talensi Districts of the Region.
She stressed that the project which is aimed at improving Peasant Women Farmers’ access to social services, also targets persons with disabilities in the district.
She observed that prior to engagements, majority of women and persons with disabilities lacked information on social protection interventions and how to access them to benefit them and added that the engagements as part of the AVID project would improve access to such interventions.
