UKaid of the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom has announced a £3million grant to support the 2010 population and housing census as well as the country’s statistical development plan.
About £2million, the equivalent of GH¢4.5million, will be for the post-enumeration survey and dissemination of the census information.
The fund has been channelled into a World Bank trust fund designed to accept funds from a variety of development partners.
Mr Jim Drummond, the Director for Western and Southern Africa of UKaid, who announced this when he met the enumerators in Takoradi, said post enumeration was a good system to check the level of coverage and accuracy of the data collected.
“This is good practice in census undertaking around the world and the dissemination of the census reports is vital to ensure that the results are widely available, well used and provides value for money,” he said.
He said census was crucial to updating information on social, demographic, economic and housing characteristics of the country’s population and lauded Ghana for travelling the path that would provide her with good data to come up with feasible development plans.
“It will help provide the basis for the design and implementation of strong development plans and programmes that can meet people’s needs,” he said.
Mr Drummond added that the census was essential for the government to be able to provide services such as health and education facilities where they were most needed.
“It is also important for the government to be able to understand where it is making progress, and where it is not, ” he said.
The UKaid Director also met beneficiaries from the Government of Ghana’s Livelihoods Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme in the Shama District of the Western Region.
LEAP is providing social welfare payments to the most vulnerable people in Ghana. It is already providing grants to 35,000 households.
UKaid has been supporting the government of Ghana’s objective to reach about 164,000 very poor households by 2012/13.
Mr Drummond said his visit to the area had afforded him first hand information about the benefits the LEAP programme was bringing to the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country.
He said the visit was also to ensure that the money was reaching the people who needed it most.
He added: “LEAP is a great example of why the census matters – better information on the population of Ghana will help to ensure that LEAP payments are directed to the poorest people.”
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