Phase 1 : Evaluation of the ENSSB (July 2014-December 2014)

The evaluation of the ENSSB was launched during the first National Social Protection Conference in 2014, which brought together provincial and national representatives of the Ministries involved in the implementation of the ENSSB, civil society organizations from across the country and development partners. This was an initial opportunity to take stock of the advances of the basic social protection system in Mozambique (link to .ppt presentation), as well as the challenges. The Government then convened a smaller follow up meeting with PARP Working Group members to outline the process of the evaluation and the opportunities to provide input.

Objectives of the Evaluation

The objectives of the evaluation were to:

• Evaluate the progress made in relation to the objectives and targets outlined in the ENSSB and other implementation documents for basic social protection;
• identify coverage gaps, using the Social Protection Floor as a framework;
• and make recommendations to strengthening of basic social protection system.

The Framework for Evaluation

The evaluation framework is based on an analysis of the following:

• The relevance of interventions: taking into account Mozambique’s vulnerability profile, based on data from national surveys;
• The effectiveness and impact of interventions: in relation to the potential numbers of beneficiaries, and the adequacy of the value and quality of the services;
• The efficiency: of beneficiary selection, payment mechanisms, and cost-efficiency;
• The adequacy of the institutional framework: including coordination between actors at national and local level, operating systems and human resources;
• The levels, composition and trends of public expenditure on social protection, funding sources, and analysis of fiscal space for sustained long-term funding.

The Process of Evaluation

The technical document of the evaluation of the National Strategy for Basic Social Security was developed through numerous iterations: 

• Thematic group discussions with stakeholders and key informants on:
  • Health social action 
  • Productive social action 
  • Education Social Action
  • Direct Social Action 
  • Social Services 
  • Institutional Capacity 
  • Financing for social Discussions 
• Follow up interviews with key informants and stakeholders involved in the policy design and implementation of the ENSSB. These included Government departments, civil society organizations and development partners. It also included field visits to rural districts.
• The development of thematic notes, based on group discussions and on-one-one interviews, triangulated with household and beneficiary data, which explored: the relevance of interventions, the effectiveness and efficiency of interventions, the adequacy of the institutional framework and questions of financing.
• The development of an evaluation report (link to the evaluation report in Portuguese version, Executive Summary in English version), based on the thematic notes, which was circulated to stakeholders and participants.

Key Findings of the Evaluation of the ENSSB

The first finding of the evaluation of the National Strategy for Basic Social Security is that ENSSB played a critical role in the significant advances in the social protection system. Three quarters of the key actions identified in the ENSSB 2010-2014 were either completed or partially completed. There was an increase in the coverage of the social subsidy program and the value of the social transfer; a new program for non-labor constrained households, Productive Social Action, was designed and launched; a process for the reregistration of beneficiaries and development of an information management system was started; a plan to outsource payment mechanisms, in order to free up social action staff to provide services, was developed; and a multi-sectoral mechanism for coordination was established.

However, there were also some significant gaps.

Program		Main Strategic Challenges
Social Subsidy  Program		Very limited (covers less than 10% of households). The current  eligibility criteria, based on a household’s ability to work means  that 40% of the elderly, 75% of people with disabilities, and 95%  of children in poverty are excluded because they live in non-  labour constrained households. Despite increases in the cash  transfers, they continue to be very low.
Direct Social  Action	Child headed  households	A very small target group
	Malnutrition  (children)	Very limited coverage. Focus on the short term, which does not adequately prevent or respond to chronic malnutrition
	Malnutrition  (ARVs)	Unclear objective, relation with health interventions.
	Immediate  support	Important, but the focus is on immediate responses to malnutrition and not prevention.
Productive  Social Action		Potentially enormous target group (non-labour constrained  households living in a situation of poverty). The question of how  to balance broad coverage with the objective of graduation. Lack  of complementary measures and very short participation times.