Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty

Background: Launching the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) by the Ghana government in 2008 was a breakthrough for underprivileged persons. This program was slated to provide financial support to identified poor and vulnerable households. There are however some challenges that arose with implementing the LEAP project, a key one being the manual payments of beneficiary funds. This was however resolved with the introduction of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems which operated through the E-zwich system to facilitate electronic payments. Other areas of the LEAP project that needed to be refined included its monitoring system. 

Solution: With funding from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), Bewsys developed a monitoring and evaluation application system for LEAP whose requirements were established by cooperating with the LEAP Management System as well as UNICEF,  to identify the evaluation indicators and district monitoring reports. An Android app and a web based app were introduced which featured a payment system and a well designed monitoring system. It also had a graphical dashboard and was made easy to use for the users and even the District Social Welfare Officers. There were other perks such as performance reports, GPS data marking and also training for the LEAP MIS team.

Impact: The monitoring, evaluation and payment management system has helped improve operational processes and swift payment funds to over 250,000 beneficiaries in deprived communities nationwide. Ultimately, this system has contributed to faster delivery of benefits to beneficiaries to alleviate poverty.