Three new projects have recently been signed between the IPC-IG and FAO

By IPC-IG
Photo: Canva

The International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are working together on three new projects in 2022 to improve social protection systems for rural populations, agri-food workers, fishers, and fish farmers in all regions of the world. 

One of the projects is focused on the West Africa Region. Titled “The state of social protection for agri-food systems workers in West Africa”, it aims at elaborating a report analysing the state of social protection schemes for agri-food workers in the region and detailing selected country cases (from the region and elsewhere) with good practices; developing a One Pager with key findings to facilitate policy dialogue and sharing study results; and creating a space for dialogue (via a webinar) between UN agencies, international and regional organisations, national governments, and civil society to discuss how to enhance social protection for agri-food workers in West Africa. 

In addition, FAO and the IPC-IG will also evaluate social protection programmes targeting fishers and fish farmers, through the project “Evaluation of Social Protection programmes in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector in Paraguay, Tunisia and Brazil”. In Brazil, the goal is to conduct an international benchmark of the benefits and other characteristics of similar interventions during closed seasons to inform policymakers, with a focus on the use of registries. In Paraguay, the objective is to evaluate the local social assistance benefit for fishers (Programa de Asistencia a Pescadores del Ministerio de Desarrollo Social) including its registry. Finally, in Tunisia, the project will support policy reforms based on an assessment of the integration between fisheries and social protection and a feasibility study to provide solutions for extending social security coverage and improving the adequacy of benefits to artisanal fishers and workers in the sector.  

The third project, “Assessing social protection system performance and leveraging digital innovations in rural areas”, has a more global focus. It aims at: 

  • developing a methodology that is comparable and replicable over time and space to examine coverage, adequacy of benefits, per capita transfers, benefit incidence and comprehensiveness of social protection performance indicators disaggregated by rural and urban areas, type of instrument (social assistance, social insurance and labour market protection), programmes, and regions; 
  • deepening the understanding of social protection performance in rural areas across regions and through time, and drivers of higher/lower performance through case studies;  
  • adapting the advocacy discourse around rural social protection based on new evidence;  
  • discussing the pros and cons of digital social protection to improve social protection performance in rural areas as well as each step of its delivery chain; 
  • documenting how digital social protection innovations can affect the delivery chain with examples/case studies from different regions, including pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 innovations;  
  • highlighting advantages, risks, and trade-offs in terms of increasing efficiency in social protection delivery, preventing fraud and duplication, safeguarding data protection and privacy, and the potential for reinforcing exclusion; and, 
  • proposing lessons learned and discussing the implications of COVID-19 leapfrogging to strengthen social protection delivery systems for them to become more resilient, agile, responsive, comprehensive, and inclusive. 

The new projects were signed between December 2021 and January 2022 and are expected to last until the end of the year.