Government Prepares Comprehensive Social Protection Programme By Ulaba Samura The Government of Sierra Leone is in the process of preparing a comprehensive social protection programme to avert the major risks that households face. These risks include poverty, disability, exposure to natural disasters and global shocks such as food, fuel, and financial crisis among others. Mr. Suleiman Nemara of the Ministry of Finance said that one of the GoSL priorities in the second poverty reduction strategy 2008-2012 is to ensure sustainable human development assistance programs to better meet the needs of vulnerable groups. He said that on March 30th, 2011, the GoSL approved the National Social Protection Policy, and that its focus is on areas that have been strengthened by including a new Social Protection Pillar in the Agenda for Prosperity 2013-2017. He added that the creation of this new pillar demonstrates Government’s commitment to move beyond crisis support, building a social protection system that can protect the poorest and most vulnerable, reduce poverty, and make growth more inclusive and sustainable. Even though the GoSL has put various efforts in place to protect households from these risks, many of the existing interventions have been ad-hoc or have only been short term support during emergencies, he maintained. According to him, in response to Government’s call for analytical work to guide the development of an improved social rotation system, the World Bank conducted an assessment of social protection programmes in 2012 in order to help put the social protection policy into action and to provide an analytic underpinning for the social protection pillar of the Agenda for Prosperity. As a follow-up to this study, according to Mr. Suleiman Nemara, in March 2013, the TTL of the Youth Employment support project which he heads led a World Bank team to identify how to support the Government in its ongoing efforts to establish a social protection system in the country. Consultations, he said, were held with the GoSL donor partners, UN agencies and NGOs specifically to, assess the possibility of social safety net programmes for Sierra Leone, identify potential beneficiaries and targeting mechanisms for the safety net projects, discuss institutional and implementation arrangements of the proposed projects, discuss projects sub-components and activities to be undertaken in the programs. The findings from the mission will form a concept note on the proposed Sierra Leone safety nets programme.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 08:49:13 +0000
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