WFP funds projects in Wa West District

The World Food Programme (WFP) is funding the construction of seven fish ponds and a dugout for two communities in the Wa West District in the Upper West Region.

In line with this, the WFP has disbursed GH¢93,666 to 314 people in the Gbache and Siriyiri communities for providing labour towards the projects.

While the fish ponds will be owned and managed by the people of Gbache, those of Siriyiri will take charge of the dugout for dry season gardening and livestock under the Asset Creation Project.

Officials of the WFP have already paid GH¢67,450 to 151 people who participated in the construction of the seven fish ponds at Gbache, while GH¢26,216 was disbursed to 163 others involved in the construction of the dugout at Siriyiri.

The payment ranged from GH¢100 to GH¢800, according to how many days an individual worked.

In all, the WFP is disbursing about GH¢1.5 million to 9,000 people involved in the construction of fish ponds, small dams and dugouts in 29 communities in northern Ghana.

Twenty-one of the communities are in nine of the 11 districts in the Upper West Region, while the rest are in the Northern Region.

Improving livelihoods

Mrs Vera Boohene of the Ghana office of the WFP said the two projects were funded by the government of Canada through the WFP and were intended to improve the livelihoods of the people of those communities.

The respective projects were worked out through the Department of Agriculture at the local level, where officials engaged the communities to help them determine the kind of agriculture-related projects they would want to undertake to impact on nutritional intake and improved livelihoods through increased incomes.

She explained that both the fish ponds and the dugouts were linked to the production of agric-based produce — fish, livestock and crops — to supply the nutritional needs of the people and also guarantee them monetary value from sales.

Mobile money transfer

As a pilot, the money was paid through the money transfer system of the mobile telephony company MTN, and Mrs Boohene said the system would be sustained and expanded to cover payments in the entire programme if it proved successful.

"We are still using the formal banks to pay many others. Rather than give them their entire earnings, some say they want to save part of their money. The money transfer system can help them save," she said.

At both Gbache and Siriyiri, women formed 80 per cent of the beneficiaries.