Govt focuses on child poverty
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Thursday October 27, 2016 16:03
The draft plan, which is under discussion in the on-going special Parliament meeting, has identified child poverty as the root cause of poverty in adulthood.
“Despite the remarkable progress that has been achieved in poverty eradication, poverty amongst children and adolescents is proportionally higher than that of the general population,” reads the draft plan.
The plan notes that children and adolescents under the age of 20 make up more than half (57.2%) of the poor population in the country, while this age group only accounts for 43.7% of the total population.
Despite spending a lot of money in the past to reduce poverty, government feels the need to shift to eradication through sustainable livelihoods for the poor, access to basic services, addressing child poverty, strengthening social protection programmes as well as provision of social safety nets. Government views the necessity to place the ending of child poverty at the centre of national poverty eradication.
The plan indicates the need to strengthen social protection programmes through enhancements of policies aimed at cushioning the vulnerable groups of the society to restore their dignity and improving their quality of life. Government has committed resources towards strengthening social protection programmes in the past but the draft paper has uncovered weaknesses in the various social programmes that will have to be addressed under NDP 11. The weaknesses include uncoordinated social development policies and programmes, beneficiaries benefiting from more than one programme: ineffective monitoring and evaluation systems; lack of impact assessment of all social programmes and over dependence on the programmes.
In addressing this government will embark on a policy programme harmonisation exercise that will involve reviewing of existing eligibility criteria.
The focus would also be on developing and improving productivity of the agricultural sector, to ensure amongst others, food security and addressing regional disparities and focusing on vulnerable groups such as women, children and the disabled.