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The United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator, Beatrice Mutali, has hailed Zambia’s commitment to social protection.
Mutali acknowledged Zambia’s efforts in ensuring provision of multiple social protection interventions and investments to scale up and reach vulnerable households nationwide.
She said this at the official opening of the 2023 Social Protection Joint Annual Review (JAR) Stakeholder Conference in Lusaka on Wednesday.
The JAR is meant to assess progress made on the programme implementation in the social protection sector and identify issues that need to be addressed in order to improve programme delivery, performance and impact.
“We affirm our support to ensuring better lives for the people of Zambia, through the Zambia United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and through close collaboration with cooperating partners and other key stakeholders, including civil society,” Mutali said.
Read more: ILO commends Zambia for extending social protection coverage to informal sector
Community Development and Social Services Minister, Doreen Mwamba, reiterated government’s commitment to ensure sustained and continued social protection for the poor and vulnerable in Zambia.
Mwamba mentioned the scaling up of social protection programmes, provision of free education and partial withdraw of funds from the National Pension Scheme Authority among others as some of the achievements attained by government.
She said this in a speech read on her behalf by the Ministry´s Permanent Secretary Angela Kawandami.
Meanwhile, Department of Planning, Policy and Information Director Patrick Choolwe shared that Community/Youth Skills Training, Food Security Pack, Social Cash Transfer, Keeping Girls in School, Home Grown School Meals and Women Empowerment programmes had greater impact in the communities.
Choolwe said this was according to the findings from the field visits conducted in May 2023.
He said the field visits were conducted in five Provinces namely, Eastern, Luapula Northern, Northwestern and Southern Provinces.
“These Programmes empowered communities with basic knowledge and skills, household food security, increased income for families, retention of girls in school and increased school attendance by both girls and boys,” he said.
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