Govt launches social protection policy

THE National Social Protection Policy, Monitoring and Evaluation Framework has been officially launched by the government.

Minister of Community Development and Social Services Olipa Phiri said the policy framework would help in decision making and maximise efficiency. Ms. Phiri said the framework would also improve efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making based on feedback that the results for the monitoring of the programmes would be presenting. She explained that despite the programme having been approved in 2014, its implementation only started in 2015 running for a period of five years which gave the ministry up to 2019 for implementation. She said the framework highlights Government’s aspirations to ensure the intended results and outcomes for the social protection sector are achieved. Ms Phiri said the achievement of the results could only be measured with a robust framework in place to track performance of the programmes against set targets of the policy and other critical documents aligned to the sector. And World Food Programme deputy country director Jayoung Lee said her organisations was committed to giving support to the programme and collaborating with government. Ms. Lee said the programme was important in ensuring transparency helping to ensure expected results were achieved. She congratulated government for addressing needs of the poor people in the country through such programmes.