Interventions for Benefit-Cost Research

Child poverty

• The coverage of the School Feeding Programme should be expanded and the stipend for Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty intervention should be reviewed upwards based on cost of living across different localities
• Universal birth registration

Improved livelihoods

• Improved working environment for microfinance
• Invest in in-service training opportunities and competency skills development to bridge the gap between university education and skills needed in the industry.
• Establish business incubators and provide start-up funds for newly established enterprises
• Ensure secured employment through legislative instruments and institute youth employment interventions through interventions such as “planting for food and jobs”
• Livelihood graduation programmes for the poor and vulnerable groups.

Public service

• Reduce cost associated with bureaucracy and promote transparency on procedures in receiving public service from state institutions via the full digitization of the operations of the public service administrative procedures.

Tackle spatial poverty

• Address land tenure challenges through the restructuring of the ownership system
• Correct distributional imbalances of basic amenities
• Institute measures to reduce the occurrence of disasters and provide coping strategies especially for poor and fragile localities to mitigate the effects of such an occurrence.
• Address housing deficit and unequal distribution across localities, especially for the poor and vulnerable groups.

Improved agriculture input management

• Fertilizer management: Investment in and promotion of the use of crop-specific fertilizer recommendations. b. Public announcement of approved selling prices for fertilizers. c. Minimize smuggling in the distribution of fertilizers.
• Subsidize fertilizers, seeds and tractors
• Implement the “one District, One Factory” initiative, through public-private partnerships to establish at least one industrial enterprise in all districts.
• Reduce post-harvest losses based on improved timing of engagement across stakeholders in the value chain systems notably transporters, warehouse operators and end-market users.
• Provide training for private seed enterprises and other registered individual seed producers on seed production technologies.
• Institute a district warehousing policy to smoothen over time, the supply of agriculture produce.
• Support diversification by farmers into tree crops, vegetables, small ruminants and poultry, based on their comparative and needs. Such diversification will also create employment in the dry season.
• Improve shelf life of agriculture products.

Health systems and access

• Invest in infrastructure to scale up Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS)
• Improve targeting of NHIS premiums to ensure richer individuals pay higher premiums and abolish user fees and annual premium payments in deprived communities
• Implement incentives schemes (such as the Deprived Area Incentive Allowance) to encourage more health services in poor and hard to reach areas.
• Standardize and expand terrain-suitable emergency transportation systems in rural communities

Infectious Disease

• Expanding prevention and treatment strategies for malaria, such as distribution of insecticide treated bednets, indoor residual spraying, artemisinin
• Improve TB case management through scale up of DOTs

Maternal and Childcare

• Expand investments (training, equipment and infrastructure) to increase availability of Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (EmONC)
• Nutrition strategies to combat stunting, wasting such as breastfeeding promotion, supplementary nutrition provision and education, community based management of wasting

Mental Health

• Support the deployment of community mental health nurses in district hospitals and Health Centres

Non-communicable disease

• Programs and health systems strengthening (training, equipment and infrastructure) to expand screening (and treatment) for NCDs and related risk factors: Blood pressure

Nutrition and lifestyle

• Integrate healthy lifestyles and regenerative health into curricula of schools and health institutions.

Free, quality primary and secondary education

• Free Senior High School policy

Improve learning outcomes

• School feeding programme
• Enabling teaching to children’s actual learning levels rather than their age
• Upgrades at least one senior high school in each district to a model school (with adequate infrastructure, staff and well-resourced science laboratories)

Youth with relevant skills

• Extends free SHS policy to students in all public agricultural, vocational and technical institutions in Ghana
• Nation Builders Corps Initiative: temporary employment to graduates
• Skills training and internships to youth 15-35 years
• National Apprenticeship Programme, 16-24 years

Eliminate harmful practices

• Eliminate child labour

End discrimination

• Ensure continued schooling for young mothers: Establishment of the Girls’ Education Unit at the Ministry of Education; Set up Gender Desk Offices at the district level to assist pregnant school girls; Assistance provided to school-girls to enable them to continue their education after delivery; Reinforcement child protection measures including child marriage.

Promote Gender Equality

• Equip women with entrepreneurial skills and provide support with start-up capital.

Sexual and reproductive health

• Scale-up midwives’ services and reinforcement of partnerships to expand access to reproductive health as in for example the Maputo Plan of Action (2006).

Recycling

• Collaboration among the Ministriaes of Environment, Science and Technology; Sanitation and Water Resources; and Trade and Industry to recycle plastic wastes into economically usable items relevant in a typical Ghanaian household
• The use of tax incentives to encourage investors and other entrepreneurs to go into the recycling of plastic wastes

Sanitation

• Extend and intensify the “Toilet for All” agenda to all coastal towns, and communities along water bodies to reduce open defecation
• Expand the integration of the “Toilet for All” agenda in the activities of the Tourism Ministry by constructing toilet facilities in all tourist centres
• Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant should be constructed in at least every district
• Expand use of by-laws to enforce cleanliness
• Institution of specialised law courts to expedite sanitation-related cases brought to them to serve as deterrent to all

WASH

• Incorporate WASH in basic education curriculum

Water access

• Intensify government’s commitment to construct mechanised and small town pipe schemes in rural communities

Water quality

• Expand fight against illegal mining (Galamsey) activities should be sustained to improve water and environmental quality
• Intensify monitoring and surveillance of marine and inland waters.

Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable, Modern Access to Energy

• LPG promotion: The establishment of Atuabo gas processing plant to process gas from the Jubilee fields and other offshore reserves to feed thermal plants and produce Liquefied Petroleum Gas, (LPG) for households; The establishment of Atuabo gas processing plant to process gas from the Jubilee fields and other offshore reserves to feed thermal plants and produce Liquefied Petroleum, The Rural LPG Promotion Program (RLP) an expansion of the LPG Promotion Project, with the goal of expanding LPG access to 50% of Ghana's population by 2020.Gas (LPG) for households; The LPG Fund set up to purchase and maintain cylinders, LPG tanks and kitchen equipment for Government of Ghana institutions (schools, hospitals and prisons) and finance the local component of the cost of constructing the Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company factory in Accra.
• Financial incentives provided through the Unified Petroleum Price Fund scheme to motivate transporters who traveled to rural locations outside a radius of 200 km from the LPG production center in the coastal areas of Ghana.
• The use of solar power by government and public buildings under the Solar Rooftop Programme.
• The Renewable Energy Services Project (RESPRO) to create a non-profit trust to manage and extend solar PV services to needy communities as an integral part of the Ministries rural electrification programme.

Balanced growth

• Diversify the economy with emphasis on processing crude oil and natural gas, and Invest oil and gas revenues in growth-inducing and pro-poor programmes to promote balanced development.

Entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation

• One district-One factory: Establish one medium-to-large-scale factory in each of the 216 administrative districts through business support in the form of the provision of infrastructure and cheap credit to private sector to sight appropriate factories in viable districts.
• Business incubation for start-ups and youth
• Skills training and national service for youth

Productive employment and decent work

• Provides temporary (three years) employment to unemployed graduates to enable them to earn a decent income and gain work experience
• Provision of accessible irrigation facilities to support the livelihood of working poor engaged in agriculture in rural Ghana
• National Industrialization Revitalization Programme: provides stimulus package targeted at viable businesses facing distress to improve their performance

Reduce youth not in employment, education or training

• Vocational training and job facilitation
• Access to credit for youth

Ferries and ports

• Development of Volta River into a major transportation artery by building modern ferry ports and providing upgraded ferries and pontoons in collaboration with the private sector.

Inclusive industrialization

• Setting up of at least one medium to large-scale factory in each of the administrative districts of Ghana.
• Support private investors and explore public-private partnershipts in the establishment of Industrial Park infrastructure and Special Economic Zones to support the strategic anchor industries pillar.
• Set up an Integrated Bauxite Authority to facilitate processing of Ghana’s bauxite into alumina and its conversion into aluminium ingots using the VALCO smelter.
• Improving research and development (R&D) and financing for industrial development.

Road and rail

• Revamp the rail network and extend it to northern Ghana.
• Develop roads in district capitals as well as areas of high agricultural production and tourism.

Urbanization

• Developing a more rigorous public transport system to help alleviate congestion in urban areas.

Agriculture

• Farm input and fertilizer subsidies

Employment

• Vocational training and job facilitation
• Temporary employment

Industry

• One District-One Factory

Drainage

• Construction of drainage improvement projects in all flood prone areas
• Close or cover all open drains or gutters in major cities

Electricity

• Intensify the Rural Electrification Program

Transport

• Upgrade into asphaltic roads or rehabilitate all access routes particularly in Accra and Kumasi to ease traffic on the main road

Environmentally-sound mgmt of chemicals and waste

• Turning plastic waste into a resource for value addition

Reduction of food waste

• Buying locally grown food for use in school feeding programmes

Sustainable use and management of natural resources

• Rural LPG Promotion Programme (2018: 2,000 cylinders, 32,800 cook stoves and accessories)
• Continue Rural LPG Promotion programme.

Address climate change and migration

• Improve access to microcredit among migrants

Build climate-resilient infrastructure

• Improve early warning system for natural disasters including: Improving hydro-meteorological observation networks to provide better climate data and information, and communicate early warning of natural hazards; Use information and communication technologies (ICT) in monitoring climate events and providing an early warning system; Ensure effective dissemination at community level, including in local languages; Enhance institutional capacity of agencies in disaster risk management, especially the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO); Reinforce partnership among government and humanitarian agencies and strengthen their capacity to respond in emergencies, including through community networks; Improve technical capacity and facilities for, as well as accessibility to communities of, rapid response to disasters and disaster management

Develop climate-resilient agriculture and food security systems

• Promote appropriate technologies for small-scale irrigation, water re-use and water harvesting (e.g., waste/water recycling), rainwater harvesting, etc.
• Improve post-harvest capacity, e.g., storage and processing facilities and infrastructure.

Improve management and resilience of terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems

• Promote effective spatial planning and land zoning, mapping and production of land resource management plans at all levels

Increase carbon sinks

• Promote alternative sources of fuel for domestic use, especially in rural areas, e.g., LPG as an alternative to wood fuel, etc.

Minimize greenhouse gas emissions

• Establish sustainable recycling and waste management technologies that generate energy (e.g., biomass energy, biogas, methane, etc.) and reduce emissions from solid and liquid wastes, especially in urban areas

Accountable institutions

• Digitize and computerize the activities of key state institutions and agencies such the Passport Office, Ghana Immigration Service, Births and Deaths Registry, Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, their respective parent ministries and key entities that provide guidance and services to these entities.