strengthening the economic Imperative for social Protection
The International Policy Conference on the African Child (IPC) provides a platform for policy dialogue on subjects affecting children in Africa. The Sixth International Policy Conference is on the theme of Social protection in Africa: Making it work for children.
Social protection is gaining recognition among African governments as an effective strategy to address deprivation and vulnerability among marginalised groups, including children. many African governments have national social protection frameworks and policies in place and have begun to create institutional arrangements that facilitate programme design and implementation. yet progress across African countries has been inconsistent, particularly since the endorsement of the Au Social Protection framework in 2009. Many questions and gaps remain with respect to — among other things — how social protection contributes to economic growth, how it can incrementally grow and become institutionalised within national processes, and how it can be sustainable, financed from domestic sources and nationally owned.
In the 6th IPC, ACPf, together with the African union (Au), governments, civil society organisations (CSos), pan-African and regional treaty bodies, academics and un agencies, aims to address some of these questions. To inform the policy dialogue, ACPf has prepared four background papers. This paper, entitled Strengthening the economic imperative of child-sensitive social protection, is one of them.