The Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty, a “flagship” program of
Ghana, has been praised as a Sub-Saharan Africa’s “miracle cure” for poverty
alleviation because it gives US$4.00 - 6.00 a month to a single beneficiary
household. In any other regions of the world, the paltry sum would not be
praiseworthy. This paper reviewed the literature on the Livelihood Empowerment
Against Poverty program to identify the reported gains by beneficiaries.
Using government’s own publication on LEAP, the author sought to determine
evidence of exclusion of the extreme poor, and to find if the alleged
gains under LEAP have improved the social inclusion and functionings of the
beneficiary households by reducing the alleged social exclusion, chronic poverty
and deprivation or by improving social solidarity and equal opportunities
for the beneficiaries. Internet search of pertinent literature was conducted,
with hand searching of grey literature produced by the Ghana Ministry of
Women and Children Affairs and others on the matter. The pertinent papers
that addressed the research questions were read and briefed for analyses. The
published literature reveals that the program has not significantly improved
the capabilities, functionings and being of beneficiaries, though there is a
plethora of anecdotal reportage about improvements in their lives. In rural
Ghana poverty is not the basis for social exclusion, though disability is. The
loose eligibility criteria reward undeserving recipients of LEAP. The government
of Ghana and its development partners need to conduct monitoring and
evaluation exercise of the program to assess the contributions, if any. They
also need to have a working definition of social exclusion, social isolation
and solidarity in order to identify the types of exclusions that should inform policy and intervention. There is an urgent need to redesign the program, rearticulate
the eligibility criteria and to set clear pathways for capacity building
of the beneficiary household leaders towards productive activities.