A Multiple Streams Approach to Understanding Social Policy in Ghana: The Case of Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty

Abstract

This paper utilizes Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) to explain how Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) was created in Ghana. MSA explains that policies are made by governments under the conditions of ambiguity (Zahariadis, 2014). Therefore, the paper explores social policy in two different time periods, 1992 to 2000, and 2001 to 2008 and argues that, prior to 2001 social policy was relatively ineffective. However, this changed when the New Patriotic Party took office in 2001. By applying MSA, this paper makes a distinct theoretical contribution to social policy research in Ghana, and argues that the policy entrepreneurial role of Former President Kufuor undergirds the implementation of LEAP in 2008.