Gov’t Committed to Scale up Social Protection for Inclusive and Sustainable Dev’t: Minister

Addis Ababa May 13/2019 The Ethiopian government is now committed to scale up social protection for inclusive and sustainable development, Labor and Social Affairs Minister ErgogieTesfaye said.

Opening the first national social protection conference at the Economic Commission for Africa today, the minister stated that the government is politically committed to work with all stakeholders in ensuring social protection.

According to Ergogie, though a National Social Protection Policy was issued in 2014 when  poverty rate and food insecurity were 22 and 33.6 percents, respectively, it did not solve the prevailing social problems.

“We (therefore) need to ensure fair and equal economic benefit of citizens as sustainable economic growth cannot be achieved without an inclusive development,” she stressed.

UNICEF Ethiopia Social Policy Chief, Gaby Guerrero Serdan said on her part Ethiopia has done well in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and social protection is crucial to achieve its national plans and assist growth.

"Social protection is a catalytic strategy to reduce poverty and hunger as it is interlinked with nutrition, health, education, employment and productivity," she said.

Serdan further noted that it is time to choose on what kind of social protection is required in Ethipia for its vulnerable parts of the community as the country is in an ongoing reform and aspiring to be a middle income country.

Organized by Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the two-day conference is held in cooperation with UNICEF, Sweden Sverige, Irish Aid, IOM and USAID, among others.