The Country Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mrs Anne-Claire Dufay, has called for coordination in the implementation of interventions designed to address the plight of the poor and the vulnerable in society.
She said the needs of the vulnerable, especially children and their families were complex, concurrent and cross cutting and required concerted efforts to address them. However, many development intervention programmes designed to solve these problems are implemented haphazardly.
To that extent, she said only coordination and harmonisation of pro-poor development projects could unravel the plethora of challenges facing the vulnerable.
Mrs. Dufay made this called at the 2020 edition of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection’s (MoGCSP) Summit in Accra.
She said integrated response to the plight of vulnerable children and their families would help accelerate poverty reduction and the multiple needs they (vulnerable children and their families) were lacking.
She added that to escape violence, exploitation, poverty and other vulnerabilities, families need concerted support such as access to income generating activity, access to health insurance and healthcare, access to justice and quality social welfare services.
In a remark, the Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mrs Sara Nicholls said it was important to have gender equality mainstreaming throughout government institutions to ensure that women and girls are considered in decisions made at all levels.
She said supporting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls were the best way to build a peaceful, inclusive and prosperous world.
Ms Freda Prempeh, the Deputy Minister of the Gender, Children and Social Protection Ministry, at the opening, said 2020, had been an extremely challenging year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She said the three-day Summit, would help assess the extent of implementation of its 2020 work plan, and address key emerging issues identified during the implementation of its policy interventions.
The Deputy Minister called for strengthened stakeholder collaboration to enable the Ministry to perform its mandate while encouraging their support to develop further strategies to ensure child safety.
Ishmael Batoma, ISD
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