The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, has met with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in the area of women and children’s rights to deepen their relationship to help solve issues that affect their welfare.

Among the issues discussed during the meeting included the implementation of the Affirmative Action Act, decentralisation of the school feeding programme, the government's intended Women’s Development Bank and its opportunities for women, social protection, child trafficking prevention and maintaining zero tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), among others.

The Minister in her initial comments said within 120 days, she hopes to be able to achieve great lengths with CSOs’ support.

She said so far, the ministry had achieved a lot within the policy implementation space but there was still a lot more to be achieved, saying the President, John Dramani Mahama, was keen on reducing the vulnerability of women and children.

“We still have more room for improvement. There are a lot of policies left hanging that need to be finalised, and we need the help of NGOs and CSOs to address these challenges at the grassroots level,” she said.

She pledged to implement significant reforms within the social protection sector in the next 120 days, saying among some of the key programmes she hopes to reform was the school feeding programme which, according to her, had faced persistent criticism over politicisation, food shortages and financial constraints.

A major change she hoped to achieve was to decentralise the school feeding programme to ensure quality control and accountability, saying, “If you cannot feed it to your children, if you cannot eat it yourself, don’t feed it to others”.

While commending the CSOs for their longstanding support and cooperation, she called on them to come on board to support the ministry to be able to achieve its target for the benefit of all Ghanaians.

Collaboration

Dr Lartey emphasised her ministry’s commitment to collaborate with civil society organisations saying, “As a ministry, we are poised to continue working with you and even do better. You have invaluable expertise that we can tap into to make this country a better place for all”.

She said the ministry would embark on a resource mapping agenda to know who is where to ensure that policies and programmes are effectively coordinated to minimise duplications.

She also hoped to build the capacities of heads of the various departments and agencies under the ministry to ensure that they can take up projects to minimise costs to the ministry.

Also, she said most of the issues in the ministry were cross-sectorial, such as the issue of street children, and, therefore, needed a sectorial approach to achieve them. She pledged to liaise more with other ministries to achieve their aims when necessary.

All the CSOs present took turns to outline their advice, expectations and where they could collaborate with the ministry, pledging their continuous support to the minister to achieve her aim.

The Chief Director for the Ministry, Dr Afisah Zakariah, also thanked the CSOs for their continuous support of the work of the ministry and assured them of the ministry’s readiness to continue to work with them.