Religious bodies and poverty reduction case of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in Abokobi

There is no dispute about the role being played and the contribution of Religious Bodies in complementing the efforts of Government in poverty reduction interventions in Ghana. This is not to say that the Religious Bodies have performed an excellent work, which leaves no room for improvement. Considering the complementary role that religious bodies play to International Donor Agencies in poverty reduction in Ghana, there is the need to ensure that their policies and implementation strategies respond to the needs and aspirations of beneficiary communities or target groups and also to ensure the best stewardship of funds that are invested in such poverty reduction programmes. The identification of the needs of the target groups and the implementation of programmes must be as participatory as possible so as to encourage local ownership of interventions. Such an approach will achieve greater sustainability of poverty reduction interventions. The Abokobi Presbyterian Agricultural Station in the Ga Rural District was used as a case study in the research. By the use of Participatory Rural Approach, data were collected from 14 villages and 9 farmer groups in addition to interviews with key informants and focus groups. This was done based on the hypothesis that “Lack of modification and review of PCG’s approaches and methods towards poverty reduction in Abokobi since 1975 has rendered her efforts in respect of poverty reduction obsolete and ineffective”. The catchments area of the Abokobi Presbyterian Agricultural Station is one of the most deprived areas that has benefited from Presbyterian Church of Ghana’s Poverty Reduction Programmes in Ghana. A conceptual framework which illustrates the thinking process of the researcher preceded the empirical research. The conceptual framework and the research were both preceded by review of relevant literature that has bearing on the research problem. From the research, several important findings were made. For Example, despite the fact that PCG has a long history of being involved in several poverty reduction interventions in Ghana, interviews with the church hierarchy and the coordinator for the Agricultural and Social Services revealed that the Abokobi Agricultural Station (AAS) has no documented policy on poverty reduction. This situation has created a communication gap between the AAS and the farmers who seem ignorant as far as the policies of the AAS are concerned. The research revealed that the beneficiaries were not involved in the identification of their needs and for that reason they feel that some of their needs are not being met. This approach is contrarily to the approach of the World Bank and the World Vision International as revealed in the literature review. The absence of a representative of the Farmer Groups on the Project Management Team which is the decision making body of the project has revealed that the activities of the station are not participatory enough. This has resulted in mistrust and has reduced the sense of local ownership among the beneficiaries. Lack of a specific documented policy has made it difficult to set targets. There were also no monitoring and evaluation systems from the initial stages of the implementation periods. For the same reasons, the phases of implementation of the intervention were not strategically planned but adhoc responses were made to emerging situations. Though the Management Committee of AAS has an excellent representation of the various partners and actors in development, the research revealed a weak co-ordination between these actors and partners of development in the community. From the findings the following important issues emerged which need to be addressed if the approach of the AAS and other Religious Bodies in Poverty Reduction can be made sustainable. These are: - Re- organization of the Financial Sector of AAS - Remuneration and Welfare of Staff. - Administrative Control & Restructuring of the AAS Administrative Set-up. - Rapid Urbanization of Farming Communities. - Participatory Approach to Identification of Needs - Unstated and Undefined Policies of PCG and AAS on Poverty Reduction - Weak Collaboration of Development Partners in Poverty Reduction The following are recommended to help provide answers to the above problems and improve on the approach and methods of AAS and Religious Bodies towards Poverty Reduction. - The Farmer groups must be given a representation on the Project Management Committee so that farmers can contribute to improve on the services of AAS. - In identifying the programmes of AAS and the needs of the beneficiaries, the beneficiaries must be involved. - Existing Development Partners engaged in Poverty Reduction Programmes in Abokobi must have a strong collaboration in pursuing their goals. - The staff of AAS must be well remunerated so that the experienced staff will stay on the job. - A new administrative structure must be considered as proposed in the main text. This will promote accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. - The AAS must adopt new strategies of providing the farmers who are losing lands to housing and industrial developers with a more sustainable means of j livelihood. Such a strategy must consider ventures that will not depend on large stretch of land. The findings from the study have revealed that the contributions of religious bodies to poverty reduction in Ghana cannot be overlooked. It is therefore essential that policies be formulated at the early stages of the programmes. Such policies must be very specific and clearly spelt out and made known to both implementers and beneficiaries. If this is done, the beneficiaries and implementers will share in the ownership of the programme together with the sponsors resulting in efficiency. This is necessary because the effectiveness of the policies and implementing strategies of such religious bodies contribute much to the sustainability of the programmes embarked on and their impact on the beneficiary communities.

Source: KNUST