National Social Protection Policy and Strategy.

The National Social Protection Policy and Strategy is a 5-year national wide document developed by the Government of Liberia in 2013 aiming at building a social protection system that tackles extreme poverty, vulnerability and inequality in Liberia whilst contributing to economic growth and peace and security. The social protection programs will improve food security, enhance access to health and education and enable the working poor to access improved income.
Strategic objectives of the Policy are as follows: (i) develop a nationally owned and implemented sector delivering coordinated and targeted protection programs with actions that will reduce difficulties due to human resources, information systems, weak service delivery and funding limitations. This approach will also help build a map of who is receiving what; (ii) provide social assistance to support the poorest and most vulnerable in attaining an improved standard of living through a more expanded coverage of the unconditional Social Cash Transfer, school feeding, progressive implementation of the Productive Social Protection Program; (iii) provide social insurance to the poorest and most vulnerable to protect them against risks and shocks in order of building a comprehensive social protection system that, together with social assistance interventions, protects both consumption of the poor while preventing households from falling into poverty at times of economic shock; and (iv) improve coordination and strengthen linkages to policies and programs of other sectors, to ensure the poorest and most vulnerable households, people and groups can access basic social services and engage in economic activities to enhance acquisition of assets and capital as well as protect against risks.
To help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, the Government aims at (i) providing a social assistance to support the poorest and most vulnerable groups including children, the disabled and the elderly in attaining an improved standard of living and reducing the burden of food insecurity; (ii) supporting safety nets to mitigate the impact of seasonal shortages and high food prices on vulnerable rural and urban households; (iii) expanding school feeding and take home rations together with other measures for improving education and nutritional outcomes for low income households; and (iv) MoA in partnership with MoPEA will link participants of social protection programs to other complementary services to support improvements to food insecurity.
In order to make agriculture more productive and sustainable, main actions of the policy are focused on yielding valuable infrastructure investments which contribute to improve the agricultural production.
Rural poverty reduction will be addressed through (i) greater distribution of resources across urban and rural locations; (ii) infrastructure development in rural areas; (iii) addressing barriers common to rural dwellers including lack of market integration, lack of access to credit, limited opportunities for off-farm employment, and the seasonality of agricultural work.
To enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems, the Government will promote an inclusive economic growth by ensuring (i) participation in development process to the poorest and most vulnerable households; (ii) increasing women’s control over family resources; (iii) helping women gain more decision-making power within the household through cash transfers; (iv) linking women to wider credit, training, extension and information services as well as essential maternal health services, flexible hours and equitable employment access; (v) improving policies and legislation on women’s property and land rights linking them to legal services; (vi) prioritizing inclusion of youth; (vii) creating market opportunities for smallholder farmers.
As for the Governance, the document calls upon the community level governance structures to be involved in the delivery of the social protection services to support effective program implementation and build community confidence in collective action. Furthermore, the Government of Liberia will develop a high quality electronic Management Information System (MIS) for effective monitoring of social protection programs. A situational assessment will be undertaken with collaborating international experts to recommend appropriate database development and a mechanisms will be established for the regular up-dating of information.