A review of social protection programs in Fiji has enabled Government to identify determinants of poverty and devise effective strategies to increase assistance provided to needy families with a vision to improve livelihood and alleviate poverty.
Ministry of Social Welfare, Women and Poverty Alleviation permanent secretary Dr Josefa Koroivueta reiterated that a review of the social welfare programs in 2011 by the World Bank Team has enabled the Ministry to firm up its strategies for poverty alleviation.
“It was for the first time that we were able to visually map the areas in Fiji, identify the districts and divisions that were living in high incidence of poverty and this were target areas for poverty alleviation programs,” Dr Koroivueta said.
“The key focus for government was to make the change and to have an impact in terms of greater coverage of beneficiaries and also to improve service delivery.”
“Formalizing the targeting mechanism is one of the important recommendations made in the “Assessment of the Social Protection System in Fiji and Recommendations for Policy Changes Report”,” Dr Koroivueta added.
He said based on the credible evidence gathered from the HIES (Household Income Expenditure Survey) it was essential for government to take effective strategies and approaches on reaching out to the vulnerable population.
“We knew that there were people who were actually abusing the system there was double dipping and based on credible evidence from HIES, the government was able to strategically put in appropriate measures with available resources, with clear intention that there are specific target areas government needs to invest to ensure that there is a greater impact,” Dr Koroivueta said.
“Poverty is typically determined at a household level and three main determinants identified were the number of people in a household, income generating of the head of the household, ageing and level of education.”
“The strategies that government has put in are focused on alleviating poverty and it is targeted towards economically empowering the poorest of the poor category. We needed the reform because we found out that there were some beneficiaries who have been on government assistance for generations, so we needed to liberate them,” Dr Koroivueta said.
He said in the quest to streamline services, Government has introduced two new programs this year: Poverty Benefit Scheme that provides a maximum of $150 monthly allowance to needy families and Social Pension Scheme which is $30 monthly pension for the elderly 70 years and above who don’t receive any form of superannuation funds.
“Government is very clear on the terms for welfare assistance, it’s going to be 3 year assistance, which is going to be monitored and we also have an avenue whereby we are able to identify the able-bodied recipients whom we can provide training opportunities and transfer them from welfare into workfare,” Dr Koroivueta added.
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