IMANI meets with the leadership of MoGCSP – Franklin Cudjoe writes

Earlier today, as part of IMANI’s broad strategy in initiating a structured series of high-level engagements with key Ministers of State and their technical team, we were invited to meet the leadership of the Ministry of Gender, Children & Special Protection (MoGCSP).

Our objective for these visits is to foster a deeper, empirically grounded understanding of the operational realities and strategic trajectory of each sector.

We recognize that public policy execution is complex, and standard public reporting often fails to capture the nuances of governance, the hurdles of implementation, and the structural reforms being undertaken behind the scenes.

To that end, the proposed working visit is designed as a fact-finding and alignment dialogue centered on the following core areas:

– *The Baseline Assessment*: An overview of the state of the Ministry, its agencies, and ongoing projects as inherited upon your assumption of office.

– *Vision and Performance Tracking*: The strategic vision your administration is currently implementing and the metrics being utilized to track progress against your set goals.

– *Operational Challenges*: The peculiar systemic, financial, legislative, or administrative hurdles the Ministry is actively navigating.

– *Milestones and Successes*: Key achievements, policy wins, and critical initiatives that have been chalked up over the past year and a half.

Our discussion with the leadership of MoGCS points to seven major structural problems:

*Mandate fragmentation:* social protection responsibilities are scattered across ministries and local government structures.

Authority versus accountability:MoGCSP is nationally accountable for outcomes it does not fully control at district level.

Severe frontline weakness: Social Welfare reportedly has a 51.3 per cent staffing deficit, alongside major operational g shortages.

Budget distortion: LEAP and School Feeding absorb *approximately 94.7 per* cent of the Ministry’s budget, leaving the wider welfare machinery badly constrained. In the last budget only *GHS 1.7 million* was allocated to domestic abuse matters country wide.​

*Infrastructure deficit* : shelters, rehabilitation centres, disability services, elderly care and other welfare facilities are insufficient.

*Professionalisation deficit:* district social work has suffered from deployment of personnel without specialised social work training.

*Measurement failure:* Ghana measures roads, schools and hospitals more easily than protection, rehabilitation, dignity and human welfare. The Ministry therefore needs a different performance architecture.

The single most important line coming out of the meeting is arguably this:

The Ministry has national responsibility for human vulnerability, but neither the money, authority, frontline personnel nor institutional architecture presently matches the scale of that responsibility.

That is the foundation on which the deeper policy diagnosis should now be built. We will share more later.

The IMANI team was led by Franklin Cudjoe,  Founding President & CEO, Selorm Branttie , Vice-President, Asare Dennis  Asare, Senior Research Associate and Kay Codjoe , Writer and  AssocIate of IMANI. The Chief Director of the Ministry, Dr. Marian W. A. Kpakpa led the technical team on behalf of the Minister.

This brief was compiled by Franklin and Cudjoe and Kay Codjoe