The modern concept of social security policy illustrated in various literatures stated that social policy programs are all about social inclusiveness. Governments launch national development policies to build countries that are socially inclusive, employment generating, economically robust and politically stable. Many scholars of social policy also went on to recommend that developing countries (such as Ethiopia) have to take lessons from the different models of social security policy, programs and action to address emerging social problems.
In most countries of Continental Europe and Japan, social policy is provided through conservative welfare regimes. It has a primary goal of preservation traditional status differences in society. Social policies in Liberal welfare regimes seek the opposite.
Classical liberals reasoned that traditional social patterns constrained individual freedoms and that a free market afforded individuals the ability to realize their potential unfettered by preexisting social hierarchies of both church and state. In the Scandinavian Countries, social security programs are always pursued with distinct stratification outcomes in mind.
For labor movements, it is the construction of solidarity that mattered.” The desire for social solidarity coupled with the need to attract sufficient electoral support led social democrats to pursue policies that emphasized universalism in a broad sense-across class lines-linking state policy to social citizenship. The different forms of social welfare programs in the world among others include; social security, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, public assistance programs, temporary assistance to needy families and supplemental security incomes provision.
In light of the stated concepts, the Ethiopian government has been implementing several social security programs so as to ensure economic equality, inclusiveness, and societal change and thereby minimize risks. The Ethiopian Federal Agency for Employment Development and Food Security recently announced that sustainable livelihood program will be launched in the coming year in different towns and cities across the country, as part of the country’s food security plan to ensure social security.
Accordingly, the program will benefit people through the provision of food security activities in many urban areas. Meanwhile, the Addis Ababa City Government Deputy Mayor Engineer Takele Uma has recently called on the community to support the ‘social trust fund’ established to help the street dwellers in the Capital, Addis Ababa in a sustainable way. In a speech forwarded to participants during the launching ceremony, the Deputy Mayor has announced that the fund is established for the needy people residing in the streets.
Thus, this will also play an important role in changing the image of the City that hosts several international organizations, diplomatic corps, UNECA and the Headquarters of the African Union. About 50,000 people will be deployed in six centers readied in the meantime, said Engineer Takele, adding that the deployment will be underway on a voluntary basis.
It is said that priority will be given to women and children and that others will be admitted to the prepared centers in accordance with the order. He also stated that the social trust fund will help to manage the life permanent residents in the center.
The City Government alone has allocated over 100 million birr initial budget. Ethiopians both inside and in the diaspora can either deposit money into the bankbook or using the hotline SMS on ‘A’ in 6400 through the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) “Social Trust Fund Account No. 1000272444726. The Deputy Mayor added that thousands of Addis Ababa City youth have been prepared to take part in this campaign.
Artists have also announced to perform music concert and pledged to contribute to the social trust fund. In addition, the city administration will work with the religious fathers, artists, media, community, and youth in order to end the misery of street dwellers and make the trust fund contribution successful. Generally, no other social problem preoccupies governments, local politicians and philanthropists as much as addressing the impact on people of having an insufficiency of goods and services to meet their basic needs.
Despite much research into the scale of the problems of poverty, policymakers have failed consistently to arrive at a ‘solution’ which eradicates poverty. Therefore, as Ethiopia doesn’t have a comprehensive and integrated social protection system regardless of the array of support mechanisms, programs, action plans and interventions that serve a variety of social protection purposes, the interventions by the Addis Ababa City government and the Federal government at large needs integrated policy frameworks.
The Ethiopian Herald January 31 /2019
BY HAFTU GEBREZGABIHER
