The building of an inclusive social protection system for Angola was under discussion at a high-level forum today at which Development Pathways presented.
At the event, opened by Angola’s Secretary of State for Social Action, Lúcio Gonçalves do Amaral, the EU and UNICEF, Senior Social Policy Specialist Stephen Kidd set out the drivers for change for social protection and the importance of social protection for a social contract in Angola. It was attended by high-level representatives from the Government of Angola and participants from the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
In the context of the international evidence presented by Development Pathways and the World Bank, Government representatives discussed the national social protection agenda and some of the key priorities for building Angola’s social protection system for the coming years. The first building block of this system is being designed by Development Pathways with the Government of Angola and UNICEF.
The forum follows training (pictured, right) this week organised by the Government of Angola and UNICEF, and funded by the EU, with Government officials with the aim of developing understanding of fiscal space considerations for social protection. The training in social protection allowed technical staff working in the Ministry of Finance and INE (National Institute of Statistics) to learn the theory of social protection. And staff working at the MASFAMU (Ministério da Acção Social, Família e Promoção da Mulher) learnt about the evidence on impacts and effectiveness of some of the main social protection schemes.
Development Pathways introduced participants to a simulation tool for Angola to inform the policy-making process by simulating different social protection policy options. Participants were able to simulate different policy options for Angola in terms of child benefits, disability benefits and social pensions, and the impact these are estimated to have on poverty and inequality.
Main image: Ruth Mixinge, a Secretary of State for Social Action, Family and Promotion of Women (right), with Glayson Ferrari dos Santos, UNICEF’s Social Protection Chief and Alexandra Barrantes, Senior Social Policy Specialist at Development Pathways. Right: the training in social protection.