UNGA: Gender Minister Courts UNICEF Support To Tackle Child Marriage, Adolescent Pregnancy
The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, has held high-level talks with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on strengthening interventions to protect and empower children and adolescent girls in Ghana.
The bilateral engagement took place in New York on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Dr Lartey met with a UNICEF team comprising George Laryea-Adjei, Director of the Global Programme Division, Lauren Rumble, Associate Director for Gender Equality, and Veronica Kamanga Njikho, Senior Advisor for Child Protection.
Discussions focused on deepening collaboration to address child marriage, adolescent pregnancy, birth registration and the protection of vulnerable girls.
The two sides explored how birth registration could be strengthened and linked to child protection interventions as a tool for identifying and protecting children and preventing child marriage.
They also discussed the Livelihood Empowerment and Productive Inclusion Programme (LEPIP), a joint Government of Ghana-UNICEF initiative targeting out-of-school, vulnerable and at-risk adolescent girls and young mothers aged 16 to 21.
The programme combines social protection, financial inclusion, life and livelihood skills, access to essential services and livelihood support to help girls transition from skills development to sustainable income generation.
The meeting further considered ways to strengthen social protection systems, particularly mechanisms for identifying and supporting vulnerable households with pregnant women, and the need to improve social protection financing to ensure interventions reach children, adolescent girls and families facing multiple vulnerabilities.
Dr Lartey reaffirmed the Ministry’s commitment to working closely with UNICEF and other stakeholders to strengthen systems and deliver practical interventions, stressing the need for coordinated action to address both immediate vulnerabilities and underlying social and economic risks.
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