They must also identify and report the shortfalls, opportunities and impacts of the programme at the community level to help sustain discussions and engagement.

Mr Colson Akanbasiam, the Head of Communications at the LEAP Management Secretariat (LMS), gave the advice during a capacity-building workshop for selected journalists, including some members of the Journalists in Social Protection (JISOP) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on the LEAP programme held in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.

The two-day workshop was organised by the LMS under the auspices of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to equip the participants with the requisite knowledge about the LEAP programme.

It was also to enable the media and CSOs to educate the beneficiaries and members of the public on the programme to demand accountability and promote transparency in its implementation process.
It was to also build the capacity of the journalists and the CSOs to advocate and influence policy direction that would lead to the strengthening and sustainability of the programme for poverty reduction.

The workshop was also to address the information gap on the programme since access to the right information about the LEAP programme in the right form by the media and the CSOs was key to achieving that goal of agenda setting and advocacy on the programme.

Mr Akanbasiam also stressed the need for the media and CSOS to adequately represent the voices of the LEAP programme beneficiaries and to appropriately amplify their concerns and interests for positive action.

"Before you even speak for them, sometimes it's better to listen to them very closely, so that you report with them or you do the civic engagement with them, so that we can amplify and speak their matters more appropriately for their interests", he stated.

The participants were also taken through the social protection and cash transfer journey in Ghana, Right-based Social Protection and cash transfer and Role of social partners (media CSOs and government) in social protection and cash transfer programmes among others.

Some facilitators of the workshop proposed an award scheme for media and CSOs in social protection as part of efforts to advance social protection advocacy and activism in the country, especially at the community level.

Mr Mohammed Fugu, the President of JISOP, expressed gratitude to the LEAP Management Secretariat for the initiative to train members of JISOP as that would better empower and inform them to champion social protection issues in their jurisdictions.

He described the training as novel since it would foster collaboration between journalists and CSOs in social protection to further advance their information sharing and partnership in the discharge of their duties, particularly in social protection.

LEAP is a social protection and poverty alleviation programme being implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection since 2008, to provide cash transfer to extremely poor and vulnerable households across the country to smoothen their consumption.
Information from the LMS indicated that there were currently 325,470 verified households on the LEAP programme with a total of 1,461,050 beneficiaries.