The African Civil Society Platform for Expanded Social Protection aims to develop effective national social protection policies and programmes. The initiative recognises that this goal can be best achieved if citizens and civil society organisations are engaged in the design, delivery, monitoring and advocacy for extended social protection programmes. In order to create an effective nationally-owned civil society platform in 16 African countries, a national consultation process took place in Lesotho, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

This process is being lead by Grow Up Free From Poverty (GUFFP) across Africa and by RHVP at national level. RHVP funded the event in all of its six focus countries and also invited other local partners such as HelpAge International and TEIA (National Forum for Mozambican NGOs) to participate.

The aims of the consultations were to:

• Identify the levels of interest, desirability and feasibility of an African-wide Platform, with reference to existing networks, initiatives, alliances etc in the country and the region;
• Deepen the understanding on the role of civil society and division of labour around expanding social protection;
• Identify capacity gaps and determine how an African-wide platform will benefit civil society;
• Determine the expectations and the main usage of the platform (information exchange, capacity building, training, advocacy etc).

A major outcome of the Civil Society Consultation Workshop for the African Platform on Social Protection held in Maputo, Mozambique, on 12 February 2008 was the creation of an Agreed Summary by the participants of the workshop which will support the detailed development of the scope, structure and functionality of the African-wide Platform for Expanded Social Protection. The Agreed Summary has been sent to GUFFP for reconciliation and production of the final African Platform.

To view the Agreed Summary in English, click here

To view the Agreed Summary in Portuguese, click here