Development fund promises $8m for urban communities

The Social Investment Fund (SIF) has indicated that by the end of this year, it expects to increase by 20 percent the disbursement of funds for development projects under the Urban Poverty Reduction Project (UPRP) nationwide.

Ama Serwaa Dapaah, Executive Director of SIF, who disclosed this at the UPRP's maiden annual review meeting last week in Accra, noted that “a lot of payments will be made during 2008 with an estimated budget of $8,376,262 to increase disbursement from the current rate of 5 to about 25 percent”.

The Executive Director explained to Daily Guide: “This does not mean money would be distributed to people.

Rather, it is meant to put certain right infrastructural developments in place by our Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to promote economic efficiency.”

In 2007, actual disbursement was $560,000 despite a planned disbursement of $8,940,000. And from January to August this year, an amount of $700,000 has been disbursed as against a planned amount of $1,128,000.

UPRP, a Government of Ghana/ African Development Bank-sponsored 5-year project, is aimed at addressing income poverty through increased economic growth in the country's urban centres.

These include Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi, Koforidua, Ho, Tema, Akim-Oda, Agona Swedru, Apam, Wenchi, Agogo and Kasoa.

Prof Gyan Baffour, deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, in a speech read on his behalf, said the project was aimed at improving the socio-economic growth of poor urban settlements through better participatory management, job creation, public/private partnership and governance at the local level.

Again, it is targeted at improving livelihoods in urban and peri-urban zones through increased access to basic quality services and socio economic infrastructure.

A loan agreement between government and the bank was signed in November 2005, between government and the bank, after which the project was declared effective in June 2006 and launched in 2007.

With a loan of UA 25 million contracted from the African Development Bank (AfDB), government believes it could reduce by half, a proportion of the country's poor that live on less than $1 a day - a project which underpins the objectives of Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II and by extension the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015.

According to the World Factbook, the percentage of Ghana's population of about 23,382,848 (2007 estimates) who live under the poverty line constitute 28.5 percent (about 6,664,111).

Source: Daily Guide