ILO salutes Lungu over social protection law

Sun, 02 Apr 2017 11:51:12 +0000

By SANDRA MACHIMA

PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu’s assurance to Parliament that Government is in a hurry to push for the Social Protection Bill is a welcome move that shows his commitment to addressing issues affecting the nation, says International Labour Organization (ILO) national programmes coordinator Mwenya Kapasa.

Ms Kapasa said ILO it was noteworthy that government was working towards enhancing social protection issues and make them known to the public.

She said it was giving hope that the Government was actually in a hurry to push for a bill on grounds that social protection was a right.

The ILO has worked, among other things, the establishment of a comprehensive and integrated social protection system, the role of civil society in the delivery of social protection and the establishment of social health insurance.

She noted that social protection was not getting the much attention it deserved and therefore it was vital to strengthen the publicity if Zambians were to benefit from it.

Ms Kapasa said her organisation had now engaged in a public lecture to stimulate and strengthen public dialogue on relevant social protection-related issues that ensured that policy decisions addressed the needs of the vulnerable and the country as a whole.

Ms Kapasa said it was for that reason ILO had come up with public lecture series initiative with other stakeholders to foster public debate on social protection.

“The underlying purpose is to strengthen collaboration on social protection issues among policy makers, the civil society, local and international NGOs as well as the general public,” she said.

The programme had been launched at the University of Zambia in collaboration with the ILO and with the support of Irish Aid.