By Victor Ahiuma-Young
IT was a gathering of Trade Unions and civil society organisations, CSOs in the West African sub-region on the auspices of West African Networking Meeting on Continental Rights Based Social Protection Project.

Participants at the social protection programme in Lagos.

The meeting was put together by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, FES, Lagos, African Platform for Social Protection, APSP, Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing, WIEGO, and the International Trade Union Congress – African Region, ITUC-Africa, Lagos Nigeria.

The agenda of the one day gathering was to interrogate current state, design and implement the social protection programmes in the sub-region;  facilitate broad-based engagement of civil societies organisations and government with a view to strengthening rights-based social protection systems oriented towards social justice, and strengthen the political side and evolution of demand-driven comprehensive social protection system.

Social protection system

Speaking to Vanguard on what Nigeria stands to gain from the workshop, FES Resident Representative in Nigeria, Uli Thum said “it is very important to bring the different countries together and draw from the very rich experience they have in the Southern Africa region where they have advanced very much in building coalitions and networks on social protection. It is important that legislation is passed in Nigeria on social protection. But we can still bring different stakeholders together; the civil societies, Trade Unions and other forces from the society to see how we can go from here or how can we engage the state,  how can they use the expertise and also the experience to spread information on that to engage in the discussion to see what people need and want and what could be the best way to move forward to expand the social protection in Nigeria.

“It is very important because every country has to find its way on how to deal with social protection. Nigeria is a very huge country and has a very rich potential to move ahead on the issue of social protection. But she also has to pick her priorities. For example, the issue of education is a problem of the very poor people.  We really need to see where the priorities are and to start implementing and  also win back the trust of the people who have been disappointed before on things like pension funds or other things. This will make  people to contribute to social protection schemes. It is time to move ahead and engage all the different parties and see how to move ahead from that.”

Corroborating, Helmut Elischer, Resident Director, FES, Zambia Office, noted among others that FES in Nigeria and Zambia brought stakeholders from the region together  “to acquaint themselves with latest information to motivate themselves how they can  help one another to develop programmes and to support the implementation of the programme.”

 In a communiqué issued at the end of the programme, participants observed that in most of the African states, Social Protection policies were still not in existence. According to the communique “In some of the nations where they exist, they have evolved in non-participatory way and are not developed with a rights-based approach due to the aversion of the elites to the recognition of explicit rights. Some of the government are suspicious of a rights-based approach to social protection advocacy. And thus still treat issues of social protection as secondary, developmental matters, strictly from the perspective of needs approach.

In many countries, issues of social protection are still treated with political expediency and benevolence of the political leadership. Citizens are removed from the developmental processes of the social protection programmes where they exist. This has largely, with few exceptions, resulted in poorly articulated social protection programmes and policies that encompass the real needs of the people.”

The communiqué noted following extensive deliberations, experience sharing and thoughts on what rights based approaches meant to national development, participants from Gambia, Liberia, South-Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria recommended that “social protection can no longer be treated as charity; governments should view social protection as a framework for attaining citizens’ rights. There is need for the authorities to know their human rights obligations and are legally obligated to establish Social Protection systems that cushion children, youth, women and men, persons with disabilities and older persons against risks of impoverishment in situations of sickness, disability, maternity, employment injury, unemployment, old age, death of a family member, high health care or child care costs, and general poverty and social exclusion. Governments should integrate social protection issues into schools’ curriculum at the relevant levels. Government should prioritise and view as constitutional obligation mobilization of resources for investment in social protection programmes. Governments should open up fora for public discourse on social protection”

Resources for investment

Similarly, they recommended that “there is need to build, expand and deepen knowledge of issues in, and relevance of social protection programmes amongst agencies of civil society , including CSOs, labour, youth platforms, women groups, people living with disability and community based groups.

Build compelling evidence and develop marketing strategies for the concept of social protection to make it attractive to all stakeholders. Develop independent monitoring mechanism and build capacity for information sharing on social protection policy. Build an inclusive, multi-sectorial, multi-lingual coalition to drive issues of social protection in the country.

“Lobby and advocate for the domestication of the ILO and relevant progressive conventions on social protection programme. Mobilise citizens and their agencies to demand for increased allocation of resources and spending on social protection programmes and projects. Generate evidence, build and demystify data for the purpose of popularising social protection programme.”