SOCIAL PROTECTION PROGRAM FOR ZIMBABWE Draft Paper – Paris ...

SOCIAL PROTECTION PROGRAM FOR ZIMBABWE
Draft Paper – Paris (24 April 2002)

INTRODUCTION

At present Zimbabwe is implementing various social protection schemes that can be grouped
under the following:

• Social Security; which include Public and Private Pension and Insurance institutions. These
are largely preventive in nature.

• Income security; which are primarily mitigatory measures such as public works
programmes, price subsidies, low interest on loans, seed packs and heifer schemes etc

• Social Safety Nets; which comprise of programmes that are of a coping nature. Examples of
these programmes include the Health and Education fee waiver schemes, food handouts etc.

The need to develop a National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) emerged largely from the
failure by the above schemes to effectively benefit the intended recipients and the limitations and
challenges the above various social protection schemes faced during their implementation. These
limitations were identified through a series of studies that were commissioned to review the
performance of the above programmes. Extensive consultations were also undertaken with
various stakeholders to ascertain their empirical experience on their respective social protection
programs.

The process of consultation concluded as follows:
• Poor targeting which resulted in errors of exclusion and inclusion as many programs tended

to benefit the rich at the exclusion of the poor
• Unsustainably high administration and support costs (especially in the supplementary feeding

and crop packs programs)
• The tendency to create and increase the dependency syndrome on Government support
• The size of the benefits being too meager to make any meaningful impact and
• Public Assistance was being a drop in the ocean

Consequently the Government initiated a process of developing a National Social Protection
Strategy (NSPS), which is intended to be a building block into the Poverty Reduction Strategy
(PRSP) as well as to:
• Improve the targeting of the poor and the vulnerable groups for specific social protection

programmes
• Be more responsive to all major social, economic, natural and other shocks & risks
• Be more efficient in the delivery of resources and services to the intended beneficiaries
• Be more fiscal/financial sustainable
• Improve co-ordination, coherence and mutual supportiveness among various social protection

programs
• Support and strengthen informal mechanisms for social protection.
• Support and broaden the scope of the PAAP in order to strengthen all its mechanisms and

activities.
• Utilize the efforts of the ESPP as one of the building blocks for the establishment of an

effective National Social Protection Strategy since the ESPP would arrest irreversible welfare
losses that might result from the current harsh economic situation the country is facing.
• Encourage the adoption of risk management approaches in all economic activities

The concept of risk management asserts that individuals, households and communities are
exposed to multiple risks from different sources, both natural and man-made.
Dealing with risks involves recognizing their sources and their economic characteristics.
Identifiable risks in the case of Zimbabwe can be classified as shown below;

Micro (Idiosyncratic) Meso Macro Global
(Covariant) (Covariant)
Natural Illness, injury, Rainfall, Floods,
Social disability, landslides, drought, Xenophobia
Birth, old age, death Epidemics cyclones
Economic Adverse social Criminal Civil war, civil Recession,
Political cultural practices, violence, strife, social Capital flight,
Crime, domestic Gender upheaval Terms of Trade
Environmental violence, Child violence Isolation,
abuse, Prostitution, Macro- sanctions, war,
Alcoholism harvest failure economic terrorism
Business failure, loss Instability
of job, loss of bread Riots, political Lack of Global warming,
winner violence political will to waste
Ethnic discrimination implement management
agreed practices
socioeconomic
programs,
Political
Intolerance

Pollution, Environmental
deforestation, degradation

Prevalent Risks Nature of Risk Vulnerable Groups
Source of Risk HIV/AIDS and TB Mine workers, Haulage drivers, sex
Health workers, abused children, Street kids,
Natural Cholera Women
Malaria Squatters and the poor
Social Death of bread winner Low altitude districts
Economic Drought Dependents
Natural Region IV and V and poor
Environmental Floods peasant farmers with low asset holding
Households in the low lying river basin
Child abuse areas such as the Zambezi, Save, and
Limpopo, etc;
Gender violence Orphans, street kids, children living in
Civil Strife difficult circumstances
Domestic violence Girl child and women
Business Failure Urban poor
Women and children
Loss of job Small scale entrepreneurs and informal
Harvest failure sector operators
Macro-economic Low income earners
instability and Recession Poor rural farmers
eg. Inflation Systemic – low income households
Terms of trade
Mining and agricultural low
Sanctions and isolation income/wage workers
Environmental Low income earners and unemployed
degradation Peasant farmers, small scale miners and
fishermen

Program Options

The programs can be broadly classified as indicated below;

1. Social Security
Social security is preventive in nature and is designed to empower beneficiaries to actively
participate in their own social protection. Programs in this component of the strategy include
pensions, insurance schemes, and other employment-based welfare programmes such as medical
aid, NSSA etc. These schemes will be enhanced through greater participation of the population in
the economic main stream and employment as well as improving the adequacy of individual
schemes themselves regarding their service delivery, levels of rewards/benefits and coverage.

Intervention strategies in this component should focus on the:
• Extension of social security schemes to the informal sector;
• Introduction of a contributory national health insurance scheme;
• Improvement of the adequacy of benefits and rewards from all social security schemes;
• Promotion of inter pension scheme transfer of benefits in the event of change of employment

and;
• Promotion of greater participation by large proportion of the population in the insurance

policy.

2. Income Security
Income security should be designed to establish firm security against income shocks (poverty),
through real asset creation and asset ownership. The aim of this component of the programme is
to guarantee that households can get income from their assets either through disposal or rent in
times of hardships. One crucial component of this program is land reform which seeks to enhance
the ownership of the prime means of production especially by people who are not in formal
employment.

Intervention strategies under this component will include:
• Enhancing asset ownership through promotion of house-ownership schemes;
• Enhancing land ownership through land reform;

• Promoting micro-finance to enhance ownership of capital assets by the entrepreneurial poor
and;

• Establishing and implementing by-laws that are supportive of the informal sector and the
entrepreneurial poor.

• Promoting public participation in equity markets.

3. Social Safety Nets
Social safety nets are designed to prevent the poor and vulnerable communities and individuals
from falling into unacceptable living standards and from incurring irreversible welfare losses.
This component of the Strategy is designed to create and offer opportunities for the poor
communities to gain access to the basic services such as health, educational, food, water, clothing
and other services and facilities. The overall aim of this program is to offer assistance in the
provision of basic social services when they are threatened or disrupted by natural and other
disasters. The thrust of these social safety nets should be to protect and offer assistance to
children in general, children in especially difficult circumstances, the aged, poor living with
disabilities, the chronically ill, the unemployed and children with special needs.

Intervention strategies under this component will include:
• Revitalising traditional approaches to the care of vulnerable groups by individuals, families,

relatives and communities;
• Deliberate interventions ( through social policy) to guarantee community access to

education, health, food and water and sanitation for the poor and vulnerable groups;
• Social safety nets that are deliberately and specifically targeted at the following groups,

children in especially difficult circumstances, children with special needs, people living with
disabilities and the elderly;
• Establishing a Disaster Preparedness Fund (DPF) to cushion people affected by floods,
epidemics, drought etc and;
• Enhancing or promoting informal social safety nets such as burial societies, community
saving clubs, church support groups etc.

The long term direction of the social protection programme is to ensure that on one hand, Social
Security and Income security programs (which are largely preventive and mitigatory in nature)
gain increasing significance, over time, in the overall social protection of all Zimbabweans. On
the other hand, it is expected that Social Safety Nets will accordingly and gradually decrease in

significance over time as economic development and growth increase, enabling more people to
contribute to their own household social protection.

NEXT STEPS

The effective programming of the strategy will be underpinned by the following steps:

• Widening stakeholder participation and review current Government and NGOs
programs.

• Vulnerability assessment.
• Consolidation of SSER and SP with the PRSP.
• Development a medium term expenditure framework to take into account the results

of SSER, PER and the PRSP process in general, so that budgetary allocations and
macroeconomic policy framework can reflect the commitment to fight poverty.
• Presentation and approval of the SP paper by Cabinet.