July 06, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 20, 1428

RAWALPINDI, July 5: The government is actively mulling a national strategy to develop an integrated and comprehensive social protection system covering the entire population, especially the poorest and the most vulnerable segments, it has been learnt.

Official sources told Dawn that the strategy was based on three goals.

It will aim at supporting chronically poor households and protect them against destitution, food insecurity, exploitation and social exclusion.

The proposed strategy will ensure protection of poor and vulnerable households from the impacts of adverse shocks to their wellbeing that, if not mitigated, would push non-poor households into poverty, and poor households into deeper poverty.

It will also promote investments in human and physical assets, including health, nutrition and education, by poor households capable of ensuring their resilience in the medium run and of interrupting the inter-generational cycle of poverty.

The core instruments proposed in the strategy include expanding the coverage of cash transfers using conditional cash transfers (CCTs) supplemented with unconditional transfers, through the Food Support Programme (FSP) and Zakat.

A new public works programme based on low-wage employment and child labour programmes, and various new pilot projects such as combination of cash transfers and basic skills development and social care services will be part of the core instruments.

The main short-term objective of reaching the poorest can be achieved by keeping the current benefits working and effecting a transition to better and more comprehensive systems. Introduction of new means of testing and development of databases through some pilot projects across chosen rural and urban areas and scaling up successful one across the country following assessment of lessons learnt will also help meet the target.—A Reporter