Social Protection And Children’s Rights in Zambia

Social protection and the issue of children’s rights have been on the development agenda for over three decades. In the late 1980s and early 1990s social protection emerged as a critical response to the “social safety nets” discourse. More recently however, slow progress towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals has rekindled interest in social transfers as a means of reducing poverty and as a strategy for accelerating progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals. ‘ There are a number of global, regional and national initiatives that have dramatically influenced the nature, scope and direction of social protection and the rights of the child in the health and education sectors in Zambia. At the international level, the World Bank is considering the scaling up of its support to social transfers as a key policy response to inequities in health and education for the poorest and socially excluded groups. At the continental and regional level, the Commission for Africa has called for a major scaling up of social assistance to vulnerable children. Within the United Nations organizations, bodies like the World Health Organization have launched a Commission on Social Determinants of Health that will review the potential of social transfer programmes to improve health. Similarly, the United Nations Children’s Educational Fund is promoting the development of a rights-based approach to social protection, education and health. At the national level, the development of a policy framework for social protection has boosted the prospects of reducing extreme poverty in incapacitated households. In addition, the incorporation of the social protection policy as a chapter in the Fifth National Development Plan has boosted the prospects of enhancing access to health and education facilities for vulnerable children. Overall, there has been an emerging consensus around the view that social protection can be an effective response to persistent poverty, vulnerability and policy shocks. The proliferation of social protection Interventions in the agriculture, health and education sectors in Zambia attests to this emerging consensus.