Kigali – On 12^th October 2023 at Serena Hotel a High Level Policy Dialogue was held within the context of social protection sector achievements and innovations, aiming to convene government senior officers including Ministers, Governors, Heads of Government agencies, Development partners, the Civil Society and Non-Government Organizations. Organized by the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) in close collaboration with Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA), the today Dialogue focused on Social Protection Innovations with the objective to facilitate insight and sharing on the way forward, particularly within the VUP, bringing attention to new innovative features that will shape the future of social protection in Rwanda.

The 2^nd of its kind, this dialogue mainly tackled the following topical issues: (a) Shock responsive social protection; (b) Citizen engagement towards Sustainable Graduation out of Poverty; and (c) Categorical grants to the attention of vulnerable households.

While officiating the dialogue, Hon. Minister Jean Claude MUSABYIMANA said that “As we reflect on the progress and successes achieved to-date, we are mindful of the challenges that lie ahead and how to confront them”. He pointed out some challenges hindering the smooth implementation of social protection programmes namely those stemming from global pandemics and grappling with the increasing inflation, resource constraints, and emerging issues such as climate shocks which affect poor households and test the resilience of households out of poverty. “As we confront these challenges, we need to come up with innovative policies and strategies that are pro-poor that will address the current and emerging challenges but also address the needs of the future generation. These include but are not limited to: the graduation strategy, social protection that is shock responsive, child, elderly and disability friendly, and strategies that provide for our able- bodied population to actively contribute towards their improved socio-economic livelihoods”, the Minister said.

 While addressing members of the press, Mrs. NYINAWAGAGA Claudine, the Director General of LODA – one of the main Government agencies mandated to implement social protection programmes to relieve citizens out of poverty – revealed that this kind of dialogue enables all social protection actors from different corners, be they from the Government, the Civil Society, local and international Non-Government Organizations, Faith Based Organizations and development partners to harmonize their interventions in the social protection sector in a bid to set up a conducive environment and channel necessary resources to vulnerable households thus enable them get out of poverty in a sustainable way as suggested by the National Strategy for Sustainable Graduation issued by the Cabinet in November 2022.

Commenting on the status of some citizens who had initially graduated from poverty but who, due some factors, fell again under the poverty line, Mrs. NYINAWAGAGA pointed out that this might have resulted to a number of shocks such as climate related ones or those brought by the loss of a family member whose income was the only survival of the household, etc. That said, DG Claudine emphasized on the highly desired mind-set change from citizens benefiting from social protection programmes to really make the graduation process lead to exit from poverty. “This is also another underlying challenge that we are examining today. We might be providing social assistance to people who are not responsible, drunkard, careless and who always feel dependent, but if we do not carry out accompanying measures through mentoring and coaching towards behaviour change and multiple development opportunities, we would not be helping them graduate”, she said.

On this occasion, Mr. Clemens Siddhartha Häusler, Deputy Head of Cooperation at German Embassy, Kigali revealed that the German Government is committed to contribute to the social protection sector in Rwanda by providing financial support to Rwanda’s social protection system, respond to shocks, offer technical assistance (through MINALOC) to implement the Graduation Strategy as well as to build the capacity of Districts to enable them implement their own projects to reduce poverty. According to his assessment, Rwanda has so far made good progress in achieving its targets in the social protection sector; and at the policy level, the multi-sectoral approach informed by the Graduation Strategy is appreciated and has to be supported.

This Policy Dialogue was initiated by the Government of Germany through its cooperation with Rwanda. The today event gathered around 50 development partners including FCDO (UK Government), World Bank, Sida, Enabel Rwanda, Give Directly, UNICEF, WFP, Village Enterprise, BRAC, Spark Micro Grants, various CSOs and NGOs that are all contributing towards accelerating poverty reduction in Rwanda.