Result achieved
31.12.2017
MOZ106
Public
Outcome summary
The National Basic Social Security Strategy (ENSSB-II) 2016-2024 was endorsed by the Council of Ministers in February 2016.
Outcome achieved
The National Basic Social Security Strategy (ENSSB-II) 2016–2024 was endorsed by the Council of Ministers in February 2016. It was designed by the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Action (MGCAS) through a wide consultative and policy engagement process at the national and provincial levels, and included social partners as well as other relevant stakeholders. The ENSSB is a national strategy for delivery of social security in Mozambique. It sets the Government of Mozambique’s vision towards reducing poverty and vulnerability through non-contributory social protection programmes, including health care.
The new ENSSB provides a good platform for the progressive realization of social protection floor (SPF) guarantees in Mozambique as it envisages a significant expansion of the coverage of the elderly and the disabled under the national flagship cash transfer programme (PSSB), the gradual introduction of a child grant, as well as improvement in the adequacy of the benefit package.
The MGCAS is implementing the strategy in an efficient and transparent way, guaranteeing the extension to groups not currently covered by the social assistance system and achieving increased coverage and enhanced quality of benefits.
ILO's contribution to the outcome
The ILO led the support provided to the MGCAS to develop a new ENSBB-II by facilitating the consultative process, delivering analytical work, contributing to the policy engagement process, and providing draft documents.
As the ENSSB ended in 2014, the Government requested ILO support to evaluate the previous ENSSB and to design a new phase of the strategy. In the context of the design of the new ENSSB-II, the ILO provided technical support to ensure that the national dialogue on the overall assessment of impact and effectiveness of the new strategy was participatory and that the products produced were aligned with international standards, as established by the ILO’s Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202).
The evaluation and policy options were discussed during a series of workshops in December 2014, which brought together approximately 200 participants from the MGCAS and National Institute for Social Action (INAS) provincial delegates, as well as national directors from sector line Ministries, civil society organizations, UN agencies and development partners. The process continued in February 2015 with a three-day retreat in Namaacha with key National Directors of MGCAS, INAS and the ILO, to discuss policy options. After that, constructive discussions continued at several meetings and national and provincial workshops.
After this consultative process, the ENSSB-II final proposal, including a comprehensive analysis of costs and impact, was delivered to MGCAS in July 2015. In the second half of 2015, the ILO focused on accompanying the ENSSB-II endorsement process through intensive advocacy efforts (the launch of the “Granma Regina” film, an event on child grants organized with UNICEF, and a field visit organized with parliamentarians) to ensure widespread and strong buy-in among decision makers and Mozambican society as a whole. The analysis of costs and impact was used as the basis for the elaboration of the Costed Operational Plan, develo
Gender equality & non-discrimination
ENSSB-II 2016-2024 acknowledges the principles of:
– Equity: “People in situations of poverty and vulnerability, particularly women, children, elderly people, disabled people and people with chronic and degenerative illnesses, are the priority recipients of basic social security. The interventions in this framework, aimed at these groups, should take their specific needs into account”; and
– Inclusion: “The objective of basic social security is not only to meet the immediate protection needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people, but also to create conditions for their inclusion in the long term”.
International Labour Standard
As mentioned in the text approved by the Council of Ministers: “Through important international instruments such as, for example, the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the Charter on Social Rights of the South African Development Community (SADC), the ILO’s Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), and today, the Sustainable Development Goals approved by the United Nations, Mozambique has taken the responsibility of establishing a social protection system for the most vulnerable strata of the population.” (ENSSB-II 2016-2024, page 12).
Social dialogue
Intensive social dialogue supported by the ILO led to widepread and strong support for the ENSSB’s principles and objectives, thus contributing to its endorsement at the highest political level possible.
Social partners’ awareness and capacities were enhanced through various training and consultation workshops and events in order to enhance their voice in the development process of the ENSSB-II and promote its adoption. This also allowed them to increase their voice and participation. Furthermore, facilitating social dialogue as part of the development process of the ENSSB contributed to strengthening the culture of social dialogue in the country in the longer term.
In order to support the effective engagement of civil society organizations (CSOs) and the social partners’ engagement in discussions on the ENSSB-II 2016-2024 design process, the ILO supported different training activities prior to the starting point of the design process.
Impacts
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Number of persons potentially covered by the strategy
Total: 2,400,000