Social Protection agenda at the heart of Zambia Congress of Trade Unions

SIAVONGA, ZAMBIA (ILO News) - The interactive workshop was crafted around building leaders’ knowledge on social protection with a view of equipping leaders with effective tools of social dialogue for policy advocacy on the social protection discourse.

The workshop also aimed at evoking trade union interest in social protection beyond traditional interest of social security for formal workers-who happen to be majority of the membership.

This platform for discussion, whichj was held in Manchichi Siavonga from 2nd to 3rd August, 2016 concluded by identifying key short and medium engagement-within a time-bound framework- on issues that include constitution of a technical team within ZCTU to further carry out trainings on a demand driven basis, identification of key social protection advocacy issues and also exploring social protection strategies that could be used as a mobilisation tool to grow membership from both from the formal and informal economy workers.

The meeting also agreed on the need to additionally utilise and ensure alignment to regional organizations’ (Southern Africa Trade Union Confederation, Southern Africa Development Community) emerging issues on social protection.

Social Security in Zambia

The Government of the Republic of Zambia is implementing various programmes providing social safety nets to various vulnerable groups of population. There are good design and/ practice to all workers in the informal economy.

It calls for the progressive extension of social insurance coverage to those in the informal economy, which may entail, if necessary, the adaptation of administrative procedures, benefits and contributions, taking into account their contributory capacity.

It also highlights that the needs and circumstances of those in the informal economy and their families should be taken into account in building and maintaining national social protection floors within their social security system and facilitating the transition to the formal economy.

The provision of Social Security is an essential component of the ILO Decent Work agenda. The decent work agenda combines access to full and productive employment with guaranteed rights at work and social protection, which are established and implemented through social dialogue and in a gender equality perspective.

Each elements characterizing decent work reinforce each other, and improvements in each dimension contribute to reduce decent work deficits.

The implementation of the decent work agenda is all the more challenging that a large share of employment arrangements remains out of the scope of the legal and regulatory framework.

The Decent Work in turn contributes towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG1, SDG3, SDG8, and SDG10) in the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

A plurality of actors is involved in the delivery of social safety nets, from the Government to donors, NGOs and local community workers. The Social Cash Transfer programme has however reached significant coverage with 242,000 beneficiaries spread in 78 districts.

However, all together these social safety net programs make a mix of independent and uncoordinated programs, characterized by very low coverage of the extreme poor and low evidence of targeting efficacy.

The fragmentation as well as the limitation in terms of social security benefits and coverage call for the development of a comprehensive and harmonized national social security system.

The Government of Zambia is moving in this direction with the development of a singular social protection legal framework through the drafting of a Social Protection Bill.

The objectives of the draft bill include to establish a national social protection system which will provide for the introduction, coordination and regulation of mandatory and complementary contributory social security schemes, as well as non-contributory basic social protection.