The World Food Programme (WFP) has introduced a biometric electronic-voucher model for girls under its ‘take home rations’ project to eliminate transportation costs borne by government.
Mrs Magdalene Owusu Moshi, the Acting Country Director, WFP, indicated that under the e-voucher model, WFP has contracted local businesses to supply the food rations to the girls.
She explained that this would stimulate trade when cash is injected into the local economies and provides opportunities for food suppliers to expand their businesses.
Mrs Moshi was speaking at a ‘take home rations’ distribution exercise at the Bamvim Presbyterian Junior High School in Tamale.
The ‘take home rations’ programme is a project spearheaded by the World Food Programme, which supports the Government to provide incentives to retain and encourage regular school attendance among girls in junior high school.
Each girl who attends school for 80 per cent of a term is entitled to a ration of 12kg of beans, 6 litres of vegetable oil and 3kg of iodised salt.
The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) has also partnered with WFP to provide Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health for the girls to reduce cases of teenage pregnancy, which is also a factor in the poor enrolment of girls in junior high school.
The programme is currently supporting 30,000 girls in the Upper East, Upper West, Northern Regions and the Volta parts of the Northern Region.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)