The Ghana National Household Registry has trained Officers of the Information Services Department (ISD) on Public Information Campaign to undertake community sensitization on the upcoming household data collection exercise in the three northern regions.

The exercise is expected to begin in Northern, Savanna, and North East regions from June and end in September this year.

The GNHR, a unit under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has since 2015 been charged to create a single national household registry, from which all social protection programmes in the country will select their beneficiaries.

After a successful completion of data collection in the Upper West and Upper East regions in previous years, the process was scheduled to commence earlier in these three regions, however, it was postponed due to the emergence of COVID 19.

Dr Prosper Laari, the National Coordinator of GNHR, said the registry would serve as a centre of target and a vital utility resource in fighting poverty in the country.

He said the ISD would undertake data collection, which is a census approach, and taking into consideration the socio-economic details of every household and the use of proxy means test, to be classified as poor, non-poor and extremely poor.

This, he said would serve as database for social protection programmes, effective targeting of beneficiaries and strengthen the country's social intervention system.

Mr Charles Wereko, a Director at the Information Service Department, gave assurance that the service was committed to deliver well-coordinated campaign to justify the confidence reposed in them by the GNHR.

He said the department was engaged by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection as key partners to carry out educational campaigns in the three regions simultaneously for the data collection process.

He further stated that it was imperative for field staff to employ innovative ways of engaging the support of all stakeholders to maximize patronage in the data collection exercise.

Alhaji Alhassan Issahaku, the Chief Director at the Northern Regional Coordinating Council, speaking on behalf of the Northern Regional Minister, admonished members of the ISD to take up the challenge to diligently discharge the assignment given them.