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Call For Papers: Sierra Leone Social Protection Conference (SL-SPC 2019)

SL-SPC 2019

URL: http://epri.org.za
Event Date: 2019-11-19 ~ 2019-11-21
Abstract Submission Date: 2019-10-30
Submission Date: 2019-10-30
Organizer: EPRI
Location: Freetown, Sierra Leone

Economic Policy Social Sciences (General) Poverty Human Rights

CALL FOR PAPERS

Financing Social Protection in Sierra Leone "focus on equity, redistribution and responsible investment" - “Salone fo betteh”

BACKGROUND

Sierra Leone has a total population of 7.4 million (2015 population Census). Population growth stands at 3.2 percent per annum doubling over the last two decades. Sierra Leone’s urban population stood at 40 percent with an annual urban growth rate of 3.1 percent. Western Area district, home to the capital Freetown, represents around half of the urban population in the country. Forty-two percent of Sierra Leone’s population is under 15 years-of-age. The country’s large youth cohort continues to struggle with a high unemployment rate, under-employment, and low literacy levels. About 60 percent of youth are believed to be structurally unemployed among the highest in the sub-region.

Infant and under-five mortalities rates have declined over the last 15 years. Despite this, they remain amongst the highest in the world. Maternal mortality in Sierra Leone is the highest in the world with 1,360 deaths per 100,000 pregnant women. Based on the recent internal analysis of child poverty 7 out of 10 (66 percent) children are deprived in one or more of the seven dimensions that constitute poverty (Information, Health, Education, Water, Sanitation, Nutrition, and Shelter.) Though there has been a slight decline in child poverty in comparison to seven years ago, some districts have not experienced any decline whatsoever. In contrast, Western urban and Bo districts made remarkable improvements in the child poverty situation. On the other hand, 55.2 percent of children live in monetary poor households. Sanitation in the country has worsened over the last seven years even with improved basic water and other health indicators. The use of sanitation services declined from 40 percent in 2010 to 16.5 percent in 2017.

The main social protection initiative in Sierra Leone is the World Bank/UNICEF supported safety net programme targeted at the extremely poor population. It is targeted at the extremely monetary poor households. Since 2013, the programme reached about 30,000 households in 9 districts. 95 percent of the beneficiaries are women. The reach is about 20 percent of the extremely poor population according to SLHS 2011. During the Ebola and humanitarian emergencies about 15,000 households in total received cash transfers through the Rapid Ebola Response Safety Net and Humanitarian Cash Transfer respectively. Many other civil society organisations (CSOs), UN agencies, and donors were involved in providing cash transfers, food for work, and cash for work to people affected by Ebola and survivors. Cumulatively, over 62,000 households benefited from the social protection initiatives in the country.
In 2016, the Government initiated a school feeding programme for children in all public primary schools. Children were provided school feeding three days in a week. This programme did not get donor approval as it was perceived to be politically motivated however the government went ahead to pay from its limited budget. Social protection initiatives in Sierra Leone are generally ad-hoc and fragmented.
In 2017, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided Sierra Leone with a conditional loan targeting social welfare issues to mitigate the impact on the removal of subsidies like fuel in the country. The programme aims to support policies targeted at reducing inflation and increasing domestic revenue collection while increasing infrastructure spending and boosting the social safety net (SSN). The new programme provides support on three broad fronts: (i) provide financing space in the short-run to fund critical spending including in safety nets; (ii) make a strong contribution to the reduction of poverty; and (iii) support a medium-term structural reform framework, most critically in domestic revenue mobilization, Public Finance Management (PFM), and financial sector reform.

UNICEF is partnering with the World Bank, International Labour Organization (ILO), World Food Organisation (WFP) and other development partners, to support the government on programme design and implementation of social protection schemes, including in emergencies. In addition to the safety net programme conducted the following in partnership with government;

1. Review the 2011 National Social Protection Policy (NSPP), approved by cabinet and signed by the highest authority in the country.
2. Development of a Social Protection implementation strategy (2014)
3. Costing of the Social Protection Policy and Return on Investment (RoI)
4. Preparedness and Response Plan for social transfers in an emergency.
5. Development of National Basic Guarantees for the Social Protection Floor in line with ILO Article 202 of 2012 on context-specific social protection floor.
6. 41 members of the Social Protection Technical Working Group trained on the costing of the social protection floor (ILO, UNICEF and World Bank) and designing and implementing Cash transfers in emergency
7. Study to conduct a Fiscal Space Analysis and Business case for social protection (UNICEF, WB and WFP)
8. WB increase funding by 30 million dollars for the expansion of the SSN programme to additional 210,000 individuals and across all the districts.

CONFERENCE STRUCTURE

2.1 Rationale for the Conference
The Government's ‘New Direction’ and the Medium-Term National Development Plan (PRSP 4) Paper) pays attention to social protection and the Social Protection Policy. The policy is forward-looking, particularly on the “Free Quality Education” programme, and how to address inequalities and quality in education. The government increased allocations to Social protection in the 2019 budgets as a sign of its commitment. Although the effort is applauded, more is needed to cover the social protection floor for the most vulnerable groups, women and children. For instance, due to lack of funding, only 20 percent of the extremely poor population is served by the World Bank and UNICEF- supported Cash transfer programme. Creating additional fiscal space is necessary to increase coverage of social protection in Sierra Leone. This conference is therefore handy to bring to the fore the importance of investing in social protection and also learning from other countries with best practices on the harmonised or single registry, targeting and payment mechanisms.

2.2 Making the investment case for financing social protection in Sierra Leone
To advance the case for funding or financing social protection policy and initiatives, a costing exercise was carried out in partnership with ILO and WB. The costed policy provides government and stakeholders with the necessary information to increase investment for affordability social protection initiatives progressively realised. The fiscal space analysis and the Business case will provide the needed evidence to encourage the government and the legislatures to create the necessary fiscal space and budgetary provisions for a child-friendly, equity-sensitive implementation of social protection initiatives in the country. Making conventional and innovative financing mechanisms available to the government will also contribute to closing the financial gap to make social protection a reality for all citizens in Sierra Leone. The conference will support advocacy efforts to lobby governments and development partners to increase funds to Social Protection in Sierra Leone.

The specific objectives of SPCS-2019 include:

1. To deepen the government’s and other stakeholders’ awareness and understanding of the benefits of continuing investment in appropriate systems in the social protection sector in Sierra Leone
2. To harness and share experiences on design and implementation including innovative financing of Social Protection programmes; and promote the exchange of best practices among local and international partners.
3. Initiate discussions around the institutionalization of Child grant initiative to complement the government’s free and quality education and school feeding programme.
4. Draw up a call to action for the coverage of targeted social protection programmes in relevant policies in Sierra Leone.
5. Use the forum to officially launch the following documents by His Excellency the President of Sierra Leone Brigadier Julius Maada Bio;
6. Fiscal Space Analysis and Business Case for Social Protection in Sierra Leone
7. Social Transfer Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan
8. Launch of the Reviewed Social Protection Policy 2018

CONFERENCE THEMES

The conference will be organized around the following themes:

1. Social Protection Policies in Addressing Poverty and Vulnerability
2. Social Protection Policies and Interventions for Vulnerable Groups
3. Shock Responsive Social Protection Systems: Shock Protection Interventions to address Shocks and Emergencies
4. Targeting, Single Registry, Payments Delivery Mechanisms
5. Fiscal Space and Financing of Social Protection Programmes
6. Building Evidence to Support the Implementation of Social Protection Policies and Interventions

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite submissions of extended abstracts (minimum 3 pages), or full papers, in one of the 6 thematic areas of policy intervention and programme design articulated above. Abstracts should be submitted by 30 October 2019 to courses@epri.org.za. Successful authors will be notified by 04 November 2019 and will be expected to submit full papers by 08 November 2019. All submitted abstracts and papers should be in English. A selection of papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication following the conference.

The conference will take place in Freetown, Sierra Leone between 19 – 21 November 2019.

For further information about the conference, contact us at courses@epri.org.za or +27 (0) 21 035 1407.

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Call For Papers: Sierra Leone Social Protection Conference (SL-SPC 2019)

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