Programme of support to the national time-bound programme for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour in Ghana

The Government of Ghana signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the ILO in 2000 to eliminate the WFCL, marking the commencement of the IPEC programme in Ghana early that year, with USDOL funding. The initial two-year phase provided a framework for various interventions to prevent and withdraw children from hazardous and exploitative work, and to strengthen the Government's capacity to effectively combat and prevent child labour. The programme focused on street children, child domestic workers, head porters and children in prostitution. Since then, there have been great strides in the development of policy and legislation. The Government has included child labour in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) since 2002. It also included child trafficking in the 2003 national budget and child labour generally in the 2004 national budget. The present project will build on the experiences gained through this first country programme and the IPEC subregional projects currently being implemented in Ghana. The project will cover a period of 51 months, starting from October 2004. There are two major strategic objectives which each has specific components. Strategic objective A: Consolidation of a conducive environment for the elimination of the WFCL at the national level comprised of the following elements: - Development of an integrated policy framework and the necessary institutional and technical capacities for addressing child labour issues effectively and in a sustained manner; - Strengthening of the legal framework for dealing with child labour, with the main emphasis on the enforcement of existing laws and regulations; - Mobilization of the society to support the fight against child labour, through awareness-raising campaigns, networking and community participation; - Development of an apprenticeship and skills training systems to expand opportunities for decent work and provide enhanced alternatives for children found in the WFCL; and - Enhancement of the knowledge base on child labour to inform planning, programme design and implementation, awareness raising and advocacy activities as well as monitoring and evaluation of interventions. Strategic objective B: Promotion of targeted action against WFCL through the replication and scaling up of models of intervention. - Through direct, targeted interventions in selected zones of intervention within districts, the project will promote the development of models of intervention within districts, the withdrawal and rehabilitation of children in the WFCL, and for preventing others from entering hazardous and exploitative child labour. The project will contribute to the elimination of child labour through a combination of medium- and long-term strategies. As a long-term approach, the project will help to strengthen the attention paid to child labour in the GPRS, in particular through the inclusion of specific objectives and strategies on child labour in the components dealing with vulnerability and exclusion, and the mainstreaming of child labour concerns in all relevant sectoral medium-term development plans (SMTDP). This approach will be aimed at reducing the necessity and the incentives for child labour, with particular emphasis on the worst forms, over the duration of the GPRS. In the medium term, the project will directly support activities focusing on the identification, withdrawal and rehabilitation of children found in the WFCL, including assistance to government at central, district and local levels to develop necessary structures for providing these services. Project activities at the upstream level will support the strengthening of an conducive environment for the elimination of WFCL in Ghana, including the development of an integrated policy framework and the necessary institutional and technical capacities for addressing child labour issues effectively and in a sustained manner; the strengthening of the legal framework, with the main emphasis on the enforcement of

Project symbol

GHA/04/51/USA

Admin unit

CO-Abuja

Start date

30/09/2004

End date

30/06/2009

Total allocation

4750000

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

4236050

Development Partners

USA, United States Department of Labor, Bureau for International Labor Affairs, Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking

Country/Countries

Ghana

Outcomes

Child Labour