SEND GHANA was established on August 4, 1998 with the maiden name Social Enterprise Development Foundation of West Africa.
The organisation has evolved into a reputable and credible national Non-Governmental Organisation with specialty in;
a: Policy research and advocacy focusing on pro-poor policy and development programme monitoring in Ghana and
b: Service delivery through the promotion of livelihoods security.
SEND GHANA implemented its first programme dubbed the Eastern Corridor Livelihoods Security Promotion Programme (ECLSPP) with the aim of addressing practical development needs of communities in the eastern corridor of Ghana through an integrated approach to service delivery. The programme in Eastern Corridor was fragmented into projects for: (1) food security through cooperation, (2) human rights and peace education, (3) rural youth, self-employment and reproductive health and (4) rural commercial and micro-financial services.
By 2008, the ECLSPP had reached out to a wide range of groups with significant impact following successes earlier chalked.
Earlier in 1999, SEND initiated a working relationship in Liberia with a local NGO, the Rainforest Development Centre, but it was forced to pull out due to the escalation of the civil war.
Between 2001 and 2004 SEND GHANA implemented a service delivery and national policy advocacy programme which began with a food security project in partnership with the Canadian Cooperative Association (CCA) and Canadian Department of International Development (CDID). Parallel to its economic development programme, SEND implemented a community-based approach to peace building and conflict management.
In 2002, the organisation took a strategic decision and started the implementation of its flagship research and advocacy programme known as the Ghana (Highly Indebted Poor Country) HIPC Watch project. The purpose of the HIPC project was to demand transparency, equity and accountability in the use of resources that the government of Ghana accessed as a result of reaching the decision point of the HIPCs’ initiative.
From 2002-2004, through 25 District Monitoring Committees, SEND monitored the use of HIPC funds in the implementation of Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS).
The HIPC watch project of SEND GHANA resulted in greater transparency, equity and accountability in the use of the HIPC funds making it a reference point for civil society work and engagement on public expenditure monitoring.
The work on the school feeding programme contributed immensely to the subsequent improvement in the implementation of the programme such that issues around poor targeting, which the organisation consistently raised were heeded to by government, paving the way for the retargeting policy that was recently introduced to ensure that the most impoverished part of Ghana were selected to benefit from the programme.
The successful implementation of the project later culminated into the development of SEND GHANA’s celebrated flagship programme known as the Grassroots Economic Literacy and Advocacy Programme (GELAP). By the end of 2004, SEND had become one of the most established advocacy organizations in Ghana, with civil society partners in 25 of the poorest districts of Ghana. GELAP which was established to foster and deepen the institutionalization of civil society-government engagement at district, regional and national levels is currently operational in 52 districts in five regions (Upper East, Upper West, Northern and Western regions) in Ghana.
In addition to this, the organisation is also working, through a loose network with local organisations, in two other regions including Ashanti and Eastern regions.
The main constituents of SEND GHANA include socially excluded and marginalised groups such as women, persons with disability, small holder farmers and in general poor people.
An innovative framework, known as the Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Framework which has four key components including; policy education, participatory research, policy engagement and policy responsiveness phases was developed as the tool for public policy advocacy.