The chiefs gave the commitment at an engagement meeting jointly organised by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) and the GNHR in Bolgatanga on Thursday.  Mr Robert E. Austin, the National Coordinator of the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP), said the GNHR Project being funded by the World Bank in collaboration with the Government when completed would help facilitate the identification of extremely poor and vulnerable households.

He said the Social Protection systems were not well coordinated at present, thus making it very difficult to identify the extremely poor and expressed optimism that when the GNHR project is completed it would coordinate and consolidate all the social protection systems including the School Feeding Programme, Capitation, Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) and the Free School Uniform Programme among other social interventions.

“The GNHR Project which is ongoing when completed will help coordinate and consolidate all the Social Protection systems to efficiently help graduate the extreme poor and the vulnerable households out of poverty.

“I therefore want to urge you as our revered chiefs who are the custodians of the people to help the project succeed,” Mr Austin said.   He said 390 Enumerators and 180 Community Focal Persons would be engaged in the Upper East Region to help collect data for the GNHR and the Districts would be tasked to assist in the recruitment of personnel to undertake the exercise which was supposed to commence in January 2017 and complete in October 2017.

Mr Mawutor Ablo, the Director in charge of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of the MoGESP, said the GNHR would help in facilitating a more effective and efficient social protection system that had a good potential of contributing to the progress already made in the poverty reduction strategy of the country.

“The GNHR will require the support of all to succeed. Ghanaians must respond to the call to participate in the registration exercise to enable the delivery of a credible single national registry that will inure to the benefit of all,” he said. Mr Philip Dornyo, a Communication Specialist of the GNHR Project, said the project begun in Upper West Region and was thriving very well with the support from the traditional rulers and the political heads.