MODULE 4. IDENTIFYING THE GAPS IN THE DELIVERY AND MANAGEMENT OF SOCIAL PROTECTION, FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SWS OR SIMILAR NATIONAL MECHANISM
Objective
The implementation of a national mechanism to deliver the SPF first ambition is to improve the social protection system of one country to deliver the right benefit to the right person at the right time. Hence it is necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of where the country stands in terms of coordinating, delivering and monitoring social protection and employment services. According to the description of the SWS (detailed in module 3), these are the three areas in which the SWS can bring dramatic improvements.
Since the SWS or similar national mechanism should not impact the definition of the floor itself, the below described methodology does not look at the policy gaps and implementation issues of the floor itself. However, the approach and methodology describe below could be used as a complementary tool to the Assessment Based National Dialogue (ABND) on social protection to provide additional details on the delivery and management aspect of the social protection systems - the ABND exercise being pretty much focused on the design of social protection according to the four guaranties of the SPF.
Key questions
1. How to assess the need for a SWS?
2. How to assess existing coordination mechanisms?
3. How to assess the social transfer accessibility?
4. How to assess monitoring and evaluation practices?
5. Who should be involved in these different assessments?
Take away message
The coordination effort to implement SPFs takes more than the organization of a serie of regular meetings to deliver information about ongoing projects. Coordination is only effective when the different stakeholders build on each other proposals, and share their strengths to reach a common pre-defined goal. This highlights the importance of defining a common goal and identifying one entity responsible for the implementation of SPFs as a whole who will maintain the common objectives and priorities in each stakeholders’ agenda.
The coordination in the field of social protection should be completed in three directions:
- Horizontal coordination at policy level
- Vertical coordination
- Horizontal coordination at operational level
Accessibility of social transfers is defined by the access to accurate information, the closeness of the services delivery point, the easiness of the procedures to get services, and the affordability of services. The geographical proximity is only one of the different components that make social services actually accessible for the people.
Monitoring and evaluation practices can be assessed through their scope (processes, outcomes, impacts), accuracy and transparency. It is also important to take into account the participation of beneficiaries representatives, as well as the incidence of the published reports.
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