Nicholas Freeland, Programme Director of RHVP, was invited to be part of the panel to launch The Chronic Poverty Report 2008-09: Escaping Poverty Traps in Bruxelles on 17 July 2008. The event was hosted by the European Working Group on Social Protection and Decent Work and was held at the International Press Centre. The First Chronic Poverty Report, published in 2004, highlighted the key processes by which many millions of people are trapped in chronic poverty. This second report, which draws on research carried out over three years, provides a policy response to the first. And for the 320 to 443 million people trapped in chronic poverty, it presents a set of policy solutions, with an emphasis on tackling exclusion, extending social protection and building assets.

The RHVP National Social Protection Awareness Day in Malawi, which took place on 2 July 2008, kicked off with a day event, open to all, led by civil society (particularly the Institute for Policy Research and Social Empowerment) at the Mitundu High School in Lilongwe district. An evening event was then held for invited guests at the Capital Hotel. The events were used as a platform to bring together various stakeholders involved in social protection, hear about beneficiary experiences of cash transfers, and look to the future of social protection in Malawi.

On the 15^th of May 2008, the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme, together with the launch of its series of short films profiling social transfer programmes across southern Africa, hosted an expert panel discussion on Food price inflation: the role of social protection in combating food insecurity.

Panellists included Professor Coleen Vogel (University of the Witwatersrand), Dr Sheshi Kaniki (Economic Policy Research Institute), John Rook (Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme), and Duncan Samikwa (a representative of the Southern African Development Community).

For a summary of the debate, click here

The RHVP National Social Protection Awareness Day, which took place in Maseru, Lesotho on the 22^nd of May 2008, was used as a platform to focus on the roles various stakeholders play in making a meaningful contribution to social protection, including civil society, the private sector, Chieftainship and government.

At the Awareness Day, Her Majesty Queen Masenate Mohato Seeiso of Lesotho, who has been a champion of social protection with the support of the spouses of Principal Chiefs, said that RHVP has brought to prominence a new dimension on the way in which Chieftainesses, as mothers of the nation, could discharge their responsibility to reduce vulnerability in communities. She also expressed gratitude to RHVP for successfully positioning social protection as an agenda to be owned and driven jointly by government, chiefs and civil society.

This series of briefs was prepared by Stephen Devereux, Frank Ellis and Philip White, and provides a regional synthesis of findings of both the 12 thematic studies and the 20 individual case studies of social transfer schemes undertaken under the Regional Evidence Building Agenda (REBA). The themes explored in these briefs are the six addressed in the original REBA design: vulnerability, targeting, coordination and coverage, cost-effectiveness, markets, and asset protection and building. Each of these themes was covered by respective thematic studies in two of RHVP’s six priority countries, and was illustrated in each of the 20 case studies. Also included in the series are briefs on two additional themes that have emerged during the implementation of the REBA work as being of particular interest and policy relevance: delivery mechanisms and social pensions.

On the 15^th of May RHVP launched its series of short films Social transfers in practice: evidence from southern Africa to the media and public in Johannesburg, South Africa. Each film outlines the history and functioning of a major social transfer programme and combines expert opinions from the implementing ministries and organisations with beneficiary experiences. The programmes include Lesotho's Old Age Pension, Malawi's Input Subsidy Programme, Mozambique's Food Subsidy Programme, Swaziland's Initiatives to assist Orphans and Vulnerable Children, and Zambia's Social Cash Transfer. Each film can be viewed online, in both high and low resolution, at http://www.wahenga.net/index.php/video_amp_audio_clips/. For a copy of the DVD please send your contact details to .

The impact of providing the poor and vulnerable with regular pensions or grants – as opposed to food aid, a voucher, or agricultural subsidies – may not be dramatic immediately, but is far-reaching in the long-term. This paper provides evidence for the impacts of income grants at different levels (from the individual beneficiary, through the household and community, to national level), drawing on findings from the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme’s (RHVP) regional evidence-building agenda (REBA) in southern Africa, as well as from elsewhere in Africa.

RHVP is currently sponsoring a series of radio programmes focusing on social protection on Zodiak FM in Malawi. They take the form of a panel discussion in which various stakeholders are able to share their views including policy experts, Parliamentarians, members of civil society and ordinary Malawian citizens. The aim of the programmes is to stimulate wider public debate on social protection and to create awareness of the national process that is underway to draft a social protection policy for Malawi.

Against the background that the process of developing the Social Protection policy and programmes in Malawi can only be participatory if the process allows for an open and inclusive national dialogue, RHVP, together with IPRSE, organised a media training workshop in Blantyre on the 8^th and 9^th of December, 2007. The rationale behind the workshop was that a possible way of achieving national dialogue on Social Protection is through the media as a forum for dialogue on poverty-related issues by all relevant stakeholders.

The training workshop had the participation of 15 journalists from different media houses including prominent news papers, the daily times, the nation, Montfort Media, Guardian News Paper and also radio stations like Malawi Broad Casting cooperation, Capital Radio 102.5, MIJ, and Joy FM and Malawi Television.

IPRSE, with support from RHVP, held an awareness event with chairpersons of parliamentary committees on the 14^th of December 2007. The event was also attended by DFID, Government, Concern Worldwide and other Social Protection Policy Technical Committee members. The event was held to build awareness and understanding of social transfers and their role in addressing chronic hunger and vulnerability.

The African Civil Society Platform for Expanded Social Protection aims to develop effective national social protection policies and programmes. Recognising that this can be best achieved if both citizens and civil society organisations are engaged, a national consultation process was put in place, lead by Grow Up Free From Poverty (GUFFP) across Africa and by RHVP at national level.

Speaking at a recent national consultation with the African Union (AU), Mozambique's Minister for Women and Social Affairs defended social protection not only as a civil right, but also as an investment. She also focused on the importance of the gradual scaling-up of the present efforts, particularly for the Food Subsidy Programme. Both RHVP’s Country Coordinator and Policy Dialogue Facilitator also presented at the consultation.

According to a report in The Times of Swaziland, a fund dealing specifically with the distribution of money for the elderly will soon be established in Swaziland. The fund, called the Social Welfare Assistance Fund, will ensure that the elderly are paid fairly and in time and should begin operating in April or May this year. The fund is also in the process of forming criteria that will be set and written for purposes of standardisation. The budget, which was previously E50 million, has increased to E94 million in the hope of benefiting the elderly.

Source: The Times of Swaziland, 22 February 2008

The Household Economy Approach (HEA) is a livelihoods-based framework for analysing the way people obtain food, non-food goods and services, and how they might respond to changes in their external environment - a negative shock, such as a drought or crop failure, or a positive policy change, such as a cash transfer scheme.

Several recent events and workshops stand testimony to the fact that Zambia is putting the issue of social protection firmly on its agenda. RHVP sponsored a series of radio discussion programmes around social protection and several stakeholders, including officers from the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services, featured on the programmes.

Decorreu de 16 a 29 de Setembro do ano em curso, na Cidade Sul Africana do Cabo, um curso de formação em matéria de desenho e Implementação de Programas de Transferências Sociais. A formação organizada pela Economic Policy Research Institute(EPRI) da Universidade de Cape Town, contou com participantes de diferentes países de África e Ásia, incluindo Moçambique que esteve representado por dois funcionários do MMAS, nomeadamente Sra Lucia Bernardete Mairosse(DINAS) e Félix Matusse(Chefe Dep. Idoso). A participação destes técnicos foi possível graças ao apoio financeiro do UNICEF e RHVP respectivamente.

With the objective of consolidating cooperation in the context of social protection in Mozambique, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on the 16^th of November 2007 between the Ministry for Women and Social Affairs (MMAS) and the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP). The MMAS was represented by the Minister, Virgília dos Santos Matabele, accompanied by the members of consultative counselling of the ministry. Programme Manager, John Rook, accompanied by the Mozambique Country Coordinator, Anabela Mabota, represented RHVP.

Obtaining input for the national policy for the elderly in Malawi was the subject of a recent RHVP-sponsored workshop held in Lilongwe on 28^th-30^th October 2007. The workshop was well attended by a range of people, including representatives of civil society and high level government officials, out of which four were Members of Parliament.

A workshop on "Social protection as a mechanism for social inclusion", co-sponsored by RHVP and the ILO with the Ministry for Women and Social Affairs (MMAS) was held in Maputo, Mozambique on 23-24th August 2007 and attended by over 70 representatives of government departments and NGOs.

One of the key lessons to have emerged from RHVP's Regional Evidence Building Agenda (REBA) is that social protection initiatives have a much better chance of success and sustainability if they are nationally designed, developed and owned - and respond to the felt needs of the actual beneficiaries - than they do if they are donor-driven or externally-imposed.

A fundamental reappraisal is currently taking place about how best to tackle the chronic poverty and hunger which are prevalent, and increasing, throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. Typically, governments and donors have reacted to these problems only after they have become acute. Moreover, responses tend to be reactive and short-lived, focusing on humanitarian assistance; and, once the crisis has been alleviated, attention drifts away and the problem is forgotten until another "emergency" once more pushes it into the headlines.

This brief reviews the Integrated Food Security and Humanitarian Phase Classification (IPC). This is a system for defining the severity of a situation (from 'generally food secure' to 'humanitarian catastrophe'), based on a wide range of indicators of the impact of hazard events on human health and welfare. The IPC is being seen as a major step forward in improving food security information systems and response mechanisms to addressing hunger and vulnerability. However, it also has a number of significant weaknesses which need to be addressed before it can be rolled out.

RHVP has begun a radio project in Lesotho, aimed at stimulating widespread discussion of issues related to Social Protection. The Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP) has begun a radio project in Lesotho, aimed at stimulating widespread discussion of issues related to Social Protection.