Social Protection

Building social protection floors
and comprehensive social security systems

MODULE 6. REACHING A CONSENSUS ON THE NEED FOR A SWS OR SIMILAR MECHANISM FOR THE DELIVERY OF THE SPF

Objective

The implementation and success of a SWS implementation project is subject to several key success factors. As detailed in Module 5, ensuring a strong and continuous commitment from the policy level is one of them, and the project cannot be completed without the will of the higher level of the administration to make the SWS one of the key priority for the country development.

However, the commitment of policy makers is not sufficient, and all the actors involved in the implementation and operation of the mechanism must be convinced of the importance and benefit of a SWS. The impact and result of implementing a SWS would shrunk in case other delivery mechanisms keep addressing the population with social protection and employment promotion services. Hence it is critical to ensure that the implementation of the SWS comes as a national consensus.

 

Key questions

1. Why is there a need for a consensus to implement the SWS?
2. Who should be involved in the consensus?
3. How to convince the different stakeholders to join the project?
4. What is the interest of inplementing a national dialogue?


Take away message

The first argument in favour of building the SWS on a consensus is the fact that the success of a coordination mechanism partly relies on the good will of each party involved in the mechanism. The installation of common practices implies that each of the stakeholder adjusts its own ways of working to take into account the specific objectives and constraint of others. This cannot be completed except if each organization is willing to change, and to conform itself to the common requirements.

Similarly, the delegation of competences cannot be completed except if the delegating organisation is convinced of the interest of such an approach. In many cases, forced delegation of activities and competencies leads to the duplication of these activities. In the case of the SWS, it means that the mechanism cannot reach its expected benefits both in terms of efficiency and consistency of the social protection system.

Stakeholders to be involved in the implementation cover:

  • Policy makers
  • Sub-national administrations
  • Social protection and employment promotion organisations
  • Social Partners
  • Civil Society Organisations

Besides the overall improvment of the social protection systems extected as a result of its integration, the main arguments to covince partners are the better coordination of policies and programmes, and reduction of costs through less duplication of efforts.


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