Dr Cedrick Alependava, PS MWYCFA“Through the experience of COVID-19 pandemic and recent natural disasters in the Pacific, social protection has also shown to be a critical factor in countries’ ability to respond to crisis,”
The Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs, in partnership with UNICEF, is focusing on the need for capacity building for all its national and provincial stakeholders on child sensitive social protection and public finance.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs, Dr. Cedrick Alependava, said the importance of social protection has been widely agreed, not only as a necessity in alleviating poverty and inequality, but also as a long-term investment for sustainable economic growth.
“Through the experience of COVID-19 pandemic and recent natural disasters in the Pacific, social protection has also shown to be a critical factor in countries’ ability to respond to crisis,” he said.
The Ministry and UNICEF are working together with various stakeholders to improve understanding of social protection and its economic, social and political impacts, as well as the case for increased investment in social protection.
A series of national dialogues is being conducted with different stakeholders to come up with the best strategy to strengthen child sensitive social protection system in the country.
Stakeholders discussed priorities and the best way forward to strengthen the social protection system in Solomon Islands, provided insights on the process of designing, delivering social protection programs, and discussed possible implications of the different approaches.
Capacity building sessions also supported stakeholders in learning how social protection can be a powerful tool to accelerate results for children, especially in the context of climate change, disaster preparedness, response, recovery and resilience in Solomon Islands.
Dr. Alependava said it is important that all parties involved has a common understanding of what social protection is, its potential impacts, the options available for expanding and delivering social protection, the cost implications of expanding social protection, as well as the possible financing options.
UNICEF Pacific’s Chief of Solomon Islands Field Office, Benjamin Grubb said the poorest children are from households that are highly vulnerable to shocks including climate change, natural disasters, which in turn, tends to push them below the poverty line without enough support for social assistance and basic services.”
“Pacific Islands countries, including Solomon Islands, continue to face problems due to human resources constraints, limited fiscal space, socio-economic vulnerabilities exacerbated by COVID-19, and climate induced disasters as well as the lack of inclusive and sound development of policies, plans and budget. We need to work together to ensure social protection for all children and their families, he said.
The government is committed to ‘improve the social and economic livelihoods of all Solomon Islanders’ and to ‘promote, protect and respect the right of children equally and educate them to become responsible citizens’ as articulated in the National Development Strategy 2016 – 2023 as well as the National Children Policy 2023-2028 respectively.
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