ILO tips Malawi on social protection programmes
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says government should consider significant domestic resource allocation in the national budget for social protection programmes to achieve desired poverty alleviation.
The development comes as about 90 percent of the resources channelled towards social protection in the country comes from development partners with government contributing littleto the initiative.
According to ILO, this leaves the government with little control over the programmes to reduce poverty as development partners have strings to pull based on terms and conditions.
mobilise resources
ILO national project coordinator Reagan Kaluluma said this in Lilongwe on Thursday during a media orientation on social protection organised by the Outreach Scout Foundation (OSF).
He observed that with the soaring Covid-19 cases, incomes are dwindling and a good number of workers are losing their jobs which increases the need for social protection.
Kaluluma said: “Ideally, locally financed social protection is good because it empowers the local government to have its priorities in the right place.
“Government can mobilise resources by reducing expenditure in some sectors where there’s wastage.”
OSF executive director Amon Lukhele said as an organisation that advocates for social protection issues, they are concerned that most of the investment is coming from development partners while the country is slowly achieving progress in social protection.
“If development partners are giving us 90 percent of social protection resources, why can’t we initiate targets annually to reduce the gap. We need to consider increasing investment from domestic resources,” he said.
So far, the country has social cash transfer, school meals, public works, micro-finance and village savings and loans, among other programmes, as social protection initiatives aimed at reducing poverty.
According to ILO, 20.2 percent of Malawians live in abject poverty with about 2.2 million benefitting from the social protection programme.
