TELL US YOUR PLANS TO COMBAT ‘KIDS ON THE STREETS’ PROBLEM! – Civil Society Demands from NPP, NDC!

By Solomon Gumah, GNA
Tamale, Nov. 28, GNA – Two institutions have called on the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National
Democratic Congress (NDC) to provide a workable plan on how would implement their social intervention
policies if they win this year’s elections.
The institutions are the Coalition of NGOs Against Streetism (CONAS) and the Street Invest Network-Northern
Sector.
The coalition, whose membership comprises the Centre for Development and Policy Advocacy (CEDEPA), the
Centre for Community Initiatives Against Human Trafficking (CIATH), Sung Foundation, the Youth Voices
Initiatives Ghana (YOVI-Ghana), the African Development Organization for Migration (AFDOM), Chance for
Children, Maltiti Child Foundation, Northern Needy Child Foundation, made the call at a press briefing in
Tamale.
The briefing formed part of the Youth Engagement for Inclusive Democracy Project, which is being
implemented by CEDEPA and partners.
Mr. Alhassan Ziblim, a Research Fellow and Project Lead at CEDEPA, who read the statement during the press
briefing, said this became necessary after thorough analysis of both NPP and NDC manifestos on whether there
was a clear sustainability plan in terms of funding and logistics to sustain the implementation of their policies.
He said the analysis showed the NPP manifesto had 10 social protection policies to improve the well-being of
street-connected children.
He said out of the 10 policies, only three representing 30 per cent, had specific interventions or activities that
could be implemented to achieve the policy objectives, adding the remaining 70% of the party's social
protection policies relating to street children were not backed with sustainable activities to help realise the
policy objective.
He said out of the 10 social protection policies, only one had been clearly aligned with the mandate of a specific
state institution or agency, which could champion its implementation.
Mr. Ziblim said whilst the NDC had a total of 13 social protection policies to improve the well-being of street-
connected children, eight of them contained specific interventions that could be implemented to achieve the
policy objective.
He said out of the 13 policies, only three representing 23% had been clearly aligned with the mandate of specific
state institution or agencies, which could champion their implementation.
He said "On the back of the aforementioned reasons, we are calling on the Presidential Candidates of both NPP
and NDC to re-examine their manifesto policies on social protection towards street children.”
GNA