The Social Protection Strategy (EDPRS2) has been adopted as an instrument to contribute to Social Protection Sector main goals in Rwanda. The overall objective of the sector is to establish a social protection system that tackles poverty, inequality and vulnerability, and improves access to essential services and social insurance. The four objectives of the sector are: to alleviate extreme poverty by raising living standards (1); to prevent shocks from causing irreversible damage to the productive capacities and human development of vulnerable households (2); to improve capabilities and opportunities for poor and vulnerable households; to enable HHS to avoid low risk, low productivity traps, make investments and work their way out of poverty (3); and to change social relations that exclude certain social groups from economic opportunities and access to public services (4). The EDPRS2 contribution along with the Sector focuses on the cross-cutting issues of: disability and social exclusion; gender and family; environment, climate change and disaster management; and capacity building. Finally, the 6 defined outcomes of the Strategy are: 1.Increased coverage of the extreme poor and vulnerable 2.Child poverty and vulnerability in the poorest households addressed 3.Social protection system has sustainable impact on extreme poverty 4.More effective, efficient and harmonised social protection sector 5.Better measurement and visibility of social protection results and impact 6.Improved sector response to climate-related risks. The sector intends to contribute to the achievement of three of the Vision 2020 targets to reduce rural poverty, namely: the food security score for the rural population; the number of off-farm jobs; and the percentage of the adult population accessing financial institutions. Specifically, under the productivity and youth employment thematic area, the Strategy seeks to contribute to productivity and youth employment by improving food security and nutrition through social protection programs. These programs will also increase the long term productive potential of Rwanda through ensuring the adequate nutrition of the next generation in the critical early years of their lives. Under the Rural Development priority area, the Policy aims to improve agricultural productivity. By enabling poor people to better manage the risks associated with adverse climatic events, social protection seeks to contribute to increasing the productivity of agriculture in two main ways: enabling poor people to invest in higher-risk, more productive activities; and protecting rural people’s productivity in the face of shocks. Regarding extreme poverty, several strategies are proposed for achieving the proposed outcomes. The Policy proposes to extend the four cash transfer programs that currently operate - VUP Direct Support and Public Works programs, FARG social assistance and RDRC subsistence allowances for vulnerable disabled ex-combatants – whilst improving efficiency by harmonising elements of programming wherever feasible. To reach the poorest households with young children, the sector will increase the coverage of public works programs. The sector will also carry out a thorough review of current public works programs in order to support the development of a new labour intensive public works policy. Additionally, combined efforts with the financial sector shall be undertaken to ensure that tailored financial services are targeted to the poor to allow them to graduate into using formal financial Services. Finally, the Strategy plans to strengthen dialogue and data exchange on climate related risks with key institutions involved in disaster risk management. An initiative by MINALOC to establish a cross Ministry technical working group on Social Protection and Early Warning Systems will be enhanced to enable timely and good quality information flow to the sector. The sector will also develop policy guidelines for social protection actors, including District and Sector staff, on how social protection programs will respond to emergencies and disasters that are commonly experienced in Rwanda e.g. floods, landslides, droughts, heavy rains and any others. Lastly, the sector will also identify key risks and vulnerabilities, based on analyses conducted to date (eg CFSVA and the Environment Sector Vulnerability Assessment), in order to "climate proof‟ social protection programs and ensure that their implementation mitigates climate related risk.
Руанда · 2013-07-01