Abstract:
The Labour Intensive Public Works (LlPW) of the Ghana Social
Opportunities Project (GSOP) was initiated by the Government of
Ghana to provide targeted rural poor households access to local
employment and income-earning opportunities during agricultural
off-seasons. The key objectives of the programme were to protect
households and communities against external shocks and; rehabilitate
and improve productive and social infrastructure such as roads,
dams and schools. The initiative was to mainly mitigate the effects of
extreme poverty, particularly during agriculture off-seasons. This
study assessed the impact of the L1PW project on labour force participation
and employment generation during the off season in agriculture
in Ghana. Panel data from two rounds of survey were used for this
analysis and propensity score matching technique was used for the
estimation of the average treatment effect. The results show that
labour force participation increased by 7% in the lean season among
beneficiary households relative to the non-beneficiaries. Paid employment
among beneficiary households increased by 9.4% relative to the
non-beneficiary households and the number of days spent in a week
on paid work by beneficiary households increased by 30.8%. The
average income received by L1PW beneficiary households from paid
work was GHC 48.57 higher than the amount received by non-beneficiary households. The paper shares interesting results on
sustainability of such innovative programmes that seek to lessen the
burden of unemployment or under-employment in deprived communities
during the lean agricultural season while creating vital infrastructure
for eco nomic growth