Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme is leaking: Irregularities watering down the impact of the flagship LEAP programme

Abstract

Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) is a flagship programme of the National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) targeted at the vulnerable and extremely poor in Ghana. Based on the peculiar characteristics that the participants of the LEAP programme exude, a combination of non-probability sampling techniques was deployed, namely; purposive and snowballing. Using a qualitative research strategy under an interpretive philosophical paradigm, this paper explored how beneficiaries of the LEAP programme are riddled with certain irregularities which were identified in this paper to be an insufficiency of cash amount given, as well as the difficulty in accessing complimentary service. It is shown that these identified irregularities warrants a responds from the government judging from the fact that the beneficiaries who face these irregularities constitute the bottom 20 per cent of the poor in Ghana.

Keywords

• livelihood empowerment against poverty (leap)
• irregularities
• beneficiaries
• cash transfer programme