How UNICEF is using innovation to take social protection to vulnerable families

Most people in Caritas Nayigezehe's village in Karongi District could not afford a balanced diet, quality health care, education, or any other basic need. This prompted them to form community savings groups, allowing them to financially support one another. Nayigezehe, a single mother of three children, a while back lost her husband, who was the sole breadwinner. She is one of those who were relocated from high-risk areas to the Rugabano IDP Model Village. She was able to join a community-based savings group after coming to the model village, which she says was a game changer for her. At first, I obtained a loan from the group in order to pay my children's school fees, which I later repaid, she said, adding, With my savings, I'm now able to pay not only for their school fees, but also for our health insurance. Community-based savings groups are one of several interventions promoted by the Unicef to empower families to be self-reliant and thus provide a safe environment for children. This activity was implemented by World Relief Rwanda through joint funding of Unicef, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). They were able to provide financial literacy training to a number of families in the Karongi-based model village through the UN Joint Programme on Social Protection. Under the programme, 130 new Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) were established, with over 3,200 households receiving hands-on skills on savings and smart spending. The VSLA aimed at improving the well-being of vulnerable households in at least one cell per district by facilitating access to loans used to start small businesses and meet basic needs such as buying food, school supplies, paying health insurance, and school fees. This is part of Unicef's role in the social protection sector's broad mandate of poverty reduction. In this framework, the UN collaborated with the government to improve the Household Profiling system by refining gender-, child-, and shock responsive data collected at household level. In the short and medium term, the information system will be used to support planning and needs assessments to inform government programs, as well as the targeting of beneficiaries for various government and donor-supported social services. They will also help to inform government initiatives such as the World Bank-supported development of a social registry, which aims to reduce inclusion and exclusion errors in Rwanda's current social protection targeting system. The Joint Programme also supported the scale-up of the integrated case management and referral system, with a service delivery coordination mechanism of different community workforces at the forefront as well as the capacity building of the para-social workers who were introduced by the government last year. These are community volunteers (one per village) who in their roles are tasked to identify and refer the most vulnerable households to appropriate services. To help people move out of extreme poverty, communication messages about their rights, social protection services, and entitlements were disseminated in the five districts targeted by the Joint Programme. The implementation of integrated social protection interventions has helped vulnerable households improve their overall well-being by increasing their access to economic opportunities and sustainable livelihoods. These efforts have resulted in better nutrition practices, increased access to basic services, and a reduction of family conflicts. The collaboration between different community workforces (para-social workers, community health workers, friends of the family, farmer promoters, etc) who support vulnerable households to access social assistance and sustainable livelihood schemes that contribute to their graduation trajectory from extreme poverty. The interpersonal communication approach disseminating and sharing messages around people’s (children included) rights and entitlements using different channels has been very instrumental in increasing the uptake of services and raising claims where their entitlements are not fully provided to ensure that no one is left behind. “We hope that beneficiaries in turn share with their peers the practices, skills and knowledge gained from the programme to help them embrace the change of graduating from extreme poverty and thereby ensuring the wellbeing of all families including women, persons with disability and children,” commented Juliana Lindsey, the Unicef-Rwanda Country Representative. She confirmed that the UN agency intends to continue ensuring the sustainability of gains and achievements by sharing evidence on programme achievements with key stakeholders and working with local authorities to provide follow-up and mentorship of beneficiaries and community leaders. Lindsey calls upon different partners to mobilize additional funding to scale up the interventions in more districts.

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How UNICEF is using innovation to take social protection to vulnerable families