Assessing the Effects of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (Leap) Program Among Beneficiary Households in the Sagnarigu Municipal

Abstract

This study examined the effects of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Program as a Social Protection Strategy in reducing poverty among beneficiary households in the Sagnarigu Municipality of the Northern Region of Ghana, using Percentage analysis and focusing on household poverty indicators such as education, health, food consumption patterns, and petty trade. Beneficiary households were the treatment group, with non-beneficiary households being the control group. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to generate the required primary data. First, 4 beneficiary communities were selected from 6 project target beneficiary communities. Then, a simple random sampling technique was employed to select beneficiaries from each beneficiary community. The results showed that LEAP had a more positive impact on beneficiaries than on non-beneficiaries across all indicators used for comparison. It is recommended that the government allocate a greater share of its budgetary support to the program to increase payments to beneficiaries.