Ghana’s main cash-transfer programme for extremely poor households is being rebuilt in two directions at once. The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection says a nationwide reassessment has identified large numbers of households that can leave Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty, known as LEAP. At the same time, the ministry is enrolling newly identified vulnerable households, with a target of 400,000 additions.
That is not a simple expansion story. It is a redistribution of a scarce safety net: some names come off the list, others go on, while the ministry says Finance has put GH¢1.1 billion behind the programme.
What the ministry says changed
During an early August 2026 monitoring visit to the Northern and North East Regions, Gender Minister Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey said the reassessment found that more than 70 per cent of beneficiary households had improved their incomes and livelihoods. On that basis, she said, between 220,000 and 350,000 households could exit the scheme. Those figures come from the minister. No independent public dataset in the sources reviewed for this article confirms the exact exit totals, so the wide range stays attached to her account.
She said the exits create fiscal and structural room to bring in newly identified poor households. The enrolment drive is part of what officials have called a “Big LEAP” onboarding exercise. Local numbers already show how sharp the swing can look on the ground. In Sagnarigu Municipality, Municipal Chief Executive Abdulai Imoro Gong said the caseload picture moved from 1,476 beneficiary households in 25 communities to 6,018 potential beneficiaries identified across 64 communities after the latest exercise.
What households receive
According to the minister, beneficiary households receive cash every two months, from GH¢320 to GH¢530 depending on the number of dependants. The LEAP Secretariat is also supposed to add complementary support such as financial literacy training, micro-savings initiatives and community livelihood programmes.
Those grants are small against ordinary living costs, but they are one of the few regular public transfers aimed at extremely poor households across all metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies. A World Bank social-protection paper places LEAP’s recent scale above 350,000 households in 2025 and describes a shift toward extreme-poor targeting, with expansion toward about 450,000 households by the end of 2026. That institutional trajectory matches the direction of travel. It is not the same number as the ministry’s “400,000 additional” enrolment target, and we are not collapsing the two into one headcount.
Why the swap matters
If you live in a household that has been told it will exit, the reassessment is a cut in income, even if officials frame it as graduation. If you are newly listed, the same exercise is the difference between receiving a transfer and waiting outside the programme. The ministry says the point is better targeting: fewer inclusion errors, fewer exclusion errors, and a list that tracks who is still extremely poor.
The ministry’s story is a retargeting of a limited safety net, not a simple top-up. Some households leave. Others join. For the families on either side of that move, that is already the whole point of the review.