 Excellencies, distinguished delegates and participants, dear colleagues, a very good morning, afternoon, or evening, depending on your time zone, and welcome to the launch event of the FAO in Geneva Social Protection Dialogue Series, jointly organized with the Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division in partnership with the International Labour Organization in UNICEF. My name is Dominique Bourjoin. I am the director of the FAO liaison office in Geneva. And I will be moderating to this session. Before starting our event, allow me to share some details regarding the logistics and housekeeping for this virtual discussion. This webinar will be in English only with no interpretation. It will be recorded and will later be available on our website along with the various related resources relevant to this session. It is scheduled to last for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. We have reserved sometimes towards the end of the webinar for Q&A session. So please submit your questions in the Q&A module, not in the regular chat box. And we try our best to answer most of them either in writing or early during the webinar. If you have any problem or technical issue, please send a message in the chat box to ask for our support to help you. So that's all for the housekeeping issues today. And I would like to take a moment to briefly introduce our speakers today. We are very honored and pleased to have with us today a number of distinguished speakers will intervene on the topic of pathways for extending universal coverage of social protection. We will hear from His Excellency Ambassador Federico Villegas, permanent representative of Argentina to the UN in Geneva and president of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Ambassador Villegas has kindly agreed to record a video message as he is unable to be with us live, as you know, the council is currently in session. We'd like also His Excellency Ambassador Marc Texten, the birds' well, permanent representative of Belgium to the UN in Geneva. His Excellency Omar Zniber, permanent representative of Morocco to the UN in Geneva. Ambassador Zniber will speak in French, but an English translation will appear in the chat box as he speaks and will be made available to all participants after the event. We'd have also Mr. Maximo Torero, FAO Chief Economist, Ms. Natalia Winder Rossi, Director of Social Policy and Social Protection at UNICEF, Ms. Rima El-Aja, Head of Economic and Marketing Services in the Ministry of Agriculture of Lebanon, Mr. Steve Chiweli, Assistant Director of Social Welfare in the Ministry of Community Development and Social Welfare of Zambia, Ms. Christina Belen, Head of the Social Policy Unit at ILO, and Mr. Stephen Devereux, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Services. Thank you very much all for agreeing to be with us today. Excellencies distinguished delegates and participants, dear colleagues, as this webinar is the first in the series, we have asked our FAO Chief Economist, Mr. Maximo Torero to introduce the team of our dialogue and the objective of the series. Mr. Torero had to record this video as he had a conflicting engagement in the margin of the UN General Assembly. So we'll now play his presentation that will, as I said, set the scene for our discussion. So if we can play Maximo Torero, please. Dear colleagues, my name is Maximo Torero, and I am the Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It is a pleasure for me to present today and to launch the Social Protection Dialogue Series that will be happening in FAO in offices in Geneva. Why social protection is so important and why we need to look at this? A way to reflect the challenges that we're facing is to look at what is happening in terms of chronic undernourishment. In this graph, we are showing the prevalence and the number of hungry people in the world over time. The axis on the left and the orange line show the prevalence of undernourishment, whereas the axis on the right and the gray line show the number of undernourished people in millions. As you can see, there has been in the last five years a significant increase in undernourishment. After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the prevalence of undernourishment, what we call the POU, got from 8.0 to 9.3% percentage points from 2019 to 2020 and rose at a slower pace in 2021 to 9.8%. The estimators have been presented as ranges for the last two years to reflect the added uncertainties around the numbers induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, which makes sometimes very difficult to collect the data that was necessary. An estimated 702 to 828 million people were facing hunger in 2021, an increase of 150 million people compared to 2019, which really reflects the significant impact that COVID-19 pandemic had over hunger. The further rise in hunger in 2021 after the sharp increase from 2019 to 2020 reflects the exacerbated inequalities across and within countries due to an equal pattern of economic recovery among the countries and also due to the significant increase of the inequalities, which end affecting the most vulnerable populations. If we look at the major drivers, we found that conflict is the first one followed by slowdowns and turnovers where COVID-19 play an impact and then we have climate change and variability, which will also be affected. But there has happened in talks like the latest one, The War in Ukraine, which has exacerbated this situation and has shown also how vulnerable this sector is and how much poverty is increasing. The GDP contraction, not only because of the lockdowns, but also what we are observing today, we have seen an spike of 97 million more people in poverty in 2020, a historically unprecedented increase in global poverty with about 60% of the new poor in South Asia and another quarter in South Sahara Africa. So colleagues, the world is faced with huge challenges and abilities to achieve the SDG tools. About 80% of extreme poor and 75% of the moderate poor live in rural areas. Up to 4.5 billion people globally depend on food systems, at least in part of their household livelihoods, including employment in food value chains, the self-employment and family labor and those in informal migrant and seasonal wage labor. Over half of these are small-scale agricultural producers and their families. Agri-food systems and formations can therefore be a primary delivery of economic recovery and poverty reduction for the majority of the world's poor people. But this is not automatic. The rural poor faces advantages and barriers which limit their ability to participate in food systems, transformations that generally have low levels of agricultural productivity, high exposure to risk to production, household income and consumption with few formal coping mechanisms and low levels of access to information, services and products, assets and face previous multiple market failures. Women in agriculture are more broadly within food systems face specific constraints in their access to productive resources and services and have limited agency which hinders their decision-making power. This means that we need policy measures that are purposely designed and implemented to enable the poor and hungry rural areas to benefit and actively take part in and contribute to processes of food system transformation. Otherwise, it is quite possible that processes of food system transformation could end up creating further poverty, hunger and especially exacerbating inequalities. So colleagues, the situation today have increased poverty. The situation today as an outcome has increased significantly inequality. But again, we also need to be careful that an agri-food system transformation could create wellness and losses and there also we need to support the most vulnerable that could be affected. Now, the overall performance of food systems or the agri-food systems depends on their coherence and interaction with several other systems including agri-food systems environmental health and social protection systems. Within this array of interconnected and overlapping systems, social protection can play an essential role in making food systems more inclusive and thereby enabling food systems to contribute to eradicating poverty, hunger and inequality. More specifically, evidence shows that social protection directly and indirectly strengthens people access to nutritious food. For instance, school feeding programs provide direct access to food. Cash transfers provide households with additional income that makes food more affordable. In the long run, improved access to food leads to better improved health and increased human capital, which makes people more productive and able to earn higher incomes available through employment in the food system. When predictor on well-targeted social protection programs can support households to engage in new economic activities and to capitalize on opportunities created by the continued economic dinnism of food systems, they'll be bringing about together long-term improvements in access to healthy diets in addition to stimulating the development of local economies. Colleagues, social protection enables households to adopt their livelihoods to the changing climate and to better manage natural resources. This is critically considering the threats that climate change and the depletion of natural resources post on the sustainability of food systems and to people's livelihoods, in particular to the rural livelihoods that largely depend on the nature of natural resources base and that they are high exposed to changes in climate. Last but not least, social protection mitigates the impacts of chops, including those associated with weather extremes, such as roads, example of what we're observing right now in the Horn of Africa and floods like the one we were observing recently in Pakistan. And also to pandemic like COVID-19 and price shocks like the one we have been seeing over the last two years or more, where social protection has allowed to cope significantly and therefore, reduce significantly the reduction of the GDP of the number of poor people that were affected as a result of COVID-19. We're seeing increased recognition of the role of social protection in achieving more inclusive agri-food system transformations. More than half of national food system pathways prefer to use in social protection as a policy measure to make in national agri-food systems more inclusive. Partly as a consequence of the role that social protection play in mitigating the impacts of COVID-19, there is increasing appreciation of the need of universal coverage of social protection and the need for sustainable social protection systems and the indispensability of such systems as a cornerstone for all socially just, healthy and well-functioning social protection programs. It is evident of the importance of social protection. In spite of this, the world is far off of meeting the SDG target 1.3, which calls on countries to implement national appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors and by 2030 achieving substantial coverage of the poor and the most vulnerable. According to the latest ILO speed report, less than half of the world population, and a mere 17% in the case of Africa, is covered by at least one social protection benefit, meaning that the majority of people in the world are unprotected against any risk. The World Bank data confirmed that even among the poorest coverage of social protection is this mildly low in certain parts of the world, only 18% of the bottom of the quantile of the distribution receives social protection assistance in low-income countries, compared to 43% in low-middle-income countries and 76% in high-income countries. The disparities are even a starker for contributory social insurance schemes as a mere 2% of the poorest pointed are covered by social insurance in low-income countries. And globally, less than 30% of people consider vulnerable. This means children, elderly, and working-age people, not covered by social insurance, receive a non-contributory social assistance, including only 7% in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to the large coverage gaps, the levels of provision in rural areas where the most of the world's pools are concentrated is inadequate. The graph in this slide shows the average per capita transfer delivered to the beneficiaries of social protection programs in rural and urban areas across country groups. The vertical axis indicates the value of transferring dollars and the horizontal axis indicates a country income grouping. The blue bars are for urban areas and the brown bars are for the rural areas. In this graph, we see that in low-income and low-middle-income countries per capita transfer values are considerably lower compared to upper-middle-income and high-income countries. In low-income countries and low-middle-income countries per capita transfer values are considerably below the poverty line. Across all countries income groups per capita transfer values in rural areas are lower than in urban areas. The value of transfers in rural areas is so low that it undermines the ability of these programs to reduce poverty in rural areas. We need a specific focus on ensuring that coverage of social protection in rural areas is added. So we need a significant improvement in the access to social protection programs in rural areas. To help fulfill the potential of social protection in eradication, hunger, and poverty through agri-food systems, we need to massively expand the coverage of social protection. This is why FAO is an active member of the Universal Social Protection 2030 Alliance, also known as the USP 2030, which for the first time brings together governments, international regional organizations, social partners, and civil society organizations in a shared commitment towards ensuring social protection for all. Together with these partners, FAO focuses on supporting national social protection systems in expanding coverage to rural areas and on ensuring that these systems recognize the commonalities and the specificities of different population groups in rural areas. For example, fisheries and pastoralists. These specificities include high levels of informality and precarious employment, largely depend on natural resource base, exposure to climate shocks, and more gradual changes in weather patterns and more limited access to services. Enabling social protection systems to better serve rural populations require promoting the participation of representatives of rural populations in their design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of social protection policies, and schemes as well as adapting policies, programs, and delivery mechanisms to the specificities of rural populations. For instance, policy and legislation, compulsory contribution systems in Algeria for self-employment agricultural workers within mechanisms facilitating gradual affiliation and contribution over a three-year period. Examples of programs, which are adjusting values of transfer to household-sized and rural areas, complementing social protection and climate-smart services to support climate adaptation. Finally, delivering mechanisms. First, e-payments to simplify access to normal populations, example in Kenya, hunger safety net program. Second, the use of farmer registers to identify the poor farmers and the extent of social protection to them. All these elements are central and it's something that we need to learn. So social protection is beyond the mandate and the capacity of any single agency. Consequently, close collaboration across agencies and partners in different areas of specialization is fundamental. Within this in mind, FAO is organizing this dialogue, the Dialogue on Social Protection series, the Dialogue on Social Protection. This dialogue series is a contribution to a reinforced collaboration across partners. More specifically, the objective of the series are to raise awareness on the role of universal social protection in promoting more inclusive food system transformation. Increase the understanding of the respected mandates of different partners and how this can each contribute to more inclusive food system transformation. And finally, to facilitate experience sharing and learning across countries and between development partners including the UN and non-UN agencies. Today's sessions, Pathways for Extending Universal Coverage of Social Protection is the first in a series. Other sessions are planned including on CHOC Responsive Social Protection and the Humanitarian Development and Peace, NEXUS and also on social protection as a key strategy for agri-food system transformation. And finally, social protection, economic inclusion and climate change. So, colleagues, this was just a simple introduction of what is coming forward and where we believe that this social protection dialogue will help all of us to learn more of how we can use this extremely important safety net mechanism to help the most vulnerable people and to reduce inequalities. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much for this introduction, Maximo. And thank you for alighting the urgency of addressing anger and malnutrition and the important role that food systems can actually play in achieving their SDG as long as they are inclusive, as was said. You also draw attention to the important role that social protection can play in making food systems more inclusive and stress that for social protection to be able to fulfill this role, coverage needs to be expanded and social protection system needs to be able to respond to the specificities of people living in rural area, which is where the poor are most concentrated. I have also noted that in his presentation, Mr. Torreau appreciated the role that this dialogue series can play in facilitating learning and experience sharing and in creating greater awareness of how different partners can support national social protection systems, ultimately giving visibility to the impact social protection can have in achieving more inclusive and rural food systems transformation. So to complete this introduction, I would like now to give the floor to Ms. Natalia Winder Rossi who is the Director of Social Policy and Social Protection at UNICEF. And Natalia will present more specifically the topic at hand. And Natalia, I'm very pleased to give you the floor. Thank you very much Dominique. Good morning, afternoon, colleagues and distinguished delegates. I'm very excited to be here to be able to partner with Ailo and Fao on this very important dialogue series and of course to see former colleagues and friends. Let me give me two seconds so I can share my screen. One second. We've been doing this for a long time but we always are a little bit technologically challenged but I think you should be able to see it by now. Please do let me know if you can all see this slide. Great. So we wanted to give a little overview from UNICEF perspective around how we wouldn't work around the importance of social protection, the move towards universal systems and of course the specific elements around children and families. I think very much aligned to what Maxima just presented in the previous session. Yes, we are in a very critical moment and unprecedented increase in poverty and inequality and we're resuming in around children which are most of the time most likely to be living in poverty than adults. We now have an estimation of having an additional 100 million children living in poverty due to the compounding impacts of climate conflict and COVID-19. And this is a phenomenon that is not only impacting low income countries but it's also across the board in middle income and high income countries even. And it's not an issue only in an aggregate number. So more children or more families living in poverty but also a change in the profiles of families and children living in poverty. More in urban areas than before although of course rural areas continue to be the mass concentration of poverty but now we see an increase in more children and families in urban areas living in poverty, in conflict and humanitarian context in families that were working in the informal or care sector. We acknowledge that it is a poverty but also a care crisis where women and girls have been disproportionately impacted having at a high risk of losing jobs and economic instability as well as arising and rising care responsibilities and impacting the labor participation. And also understanding and even before the crisis we had a massive gap in terms of the financing of SEGs particularly SEGs focus on social sectors and including social protection. Social spending is at risk and when we are in a context of economic contraction unfortunately is the first sectors that are cut or affected. And also we know that we are in a very critical debt crisis which as the base of a recent study that we did most of countries are spending more in debt repayments than in education, social protection or health combined. We know that social protection was one of the critical pillars of the COVID-19 emergency response. We know from a lot of the work that we've done in partnership with other colleagues that they are solid evidence around the impacts of social protection across different outcomes affecting children, families, but also for those of women. And I think that also the response changed a little bit the narrative around social protection that it's critical for the poorest but it's not only relevant for the poorest but it is an issue for every single population, an issue that needs to be a focus of the response not just as an emergency short-term element but as a core pillar of inclusive recovery and resilient societies. We know that it's a recognized strategy for reducing child poverty but also to address many of the climate and conflict related risks as we've all recognized in the series of global commitments such as the grand bargain and others. And I think more recent as I think also Maximo highlighted our commitment as agencies and as partners to really move towards the progressive realization of universal coverage where we see as UNICEF universal child benefits as a critical entry point to move towards universal coverage. Maximo was very clear on the critical gaps that we still have in terms of covers of social protection. And when we zoom in on children we have that only one in four children have access to any form of social protection and this coverage unfortunately is lowest in places with high poverty rates and including of course in humanitarian context. But I think it's important to bear in mind that yes, coverage is our main concern and without expansion of coverage we cannot realize any of the impacts and the potential of social protection. But I think that crisis also was very clear in highlighting all other types of gaps that we also need to pay close attention. For instance, in terms of adequacy the effective reach of a specific population such as girl, women, children with disability, migrants, children in ethnic groups in different areas. Just to give an example based on a tracker led by you and women we know that the COVID response was gender blind or neutral where less than one in five social protection measures address gender regardless of the party and care impacts across the board. We also know that we need to do much more in enhancing the specific design of the social protection programs to really address the specific vulnerabilities of specific sectors. In terms of design, in terms of the size of the transfer in terms of the types of interventions that we are putting forth and we're scaling up. And maybe third, even though we've done I think a lot of and there's been a lot of spotlight around the importance of income based transfers cash transfers and others. We still have a long to do in terms of other critical interventions within the social protection system that can be equally important and impactful such as health insurance, affordable childcare, family, family policies, which were not and continue not to be highlighted or included in the systematic response across COVID but also across other types of crises. A gap in terms of what we call risking for programming. So even though countries with very strong national social protection systems were better able to respond to the crises we still saw that they were the need to create other parallel systems to cover critical populations that were not in the social protection system such as migrants and informal workers, for example. Even though there were some elements of horizontal expansion or vertical expansion of systems there was some limitations in terms of the timeliness of the response and the type of programs that we saw on the table. And right now the risks of some of that critical expansions to be contracted and not systematically integrated with designing systems. I think we're in a moment where we need to focus on coverage but we also need to think about the opportunity of addressing such of these critical gaps in terms of design including making sure the programs are more shock responsive that integrates systematically the elements of risk as an element of good programming not as seen as an add-on for development or an additional element to take into account but as an essential element to make sure that we can realize as I said before the potential and the impacts that we can see and we know the social protection can provide. And then thirdly, the critical gap around sustainable financing. I think there was definitely an unprecedented response very commendable that many member states across the board really prioritized social protection during the response even with existing fiscal space and making sure that they were putting on the table many financing modalities. So proving that when there's political will we can find the economic means to expand social protection but we are of course at a risk of uneven recovery where not every country was able to make that change to make that leap. We still have based on ILO's estimation a gap in terms of how to sustain investments in social protection across countries. And of course the importance to make sure that once again this is prioritized and not seen as an afterthought when we're discussing financing strategies for recovery. And I think right now we have a very strong partnership at the UN level and based on the leadership of the secretary general that prioritized the global accelerator on social protection and jobs for just transition as one of the critical elements of the common agenda. The importance of really elevating social protection as I said not just as an emergency and short-term response but there's a critical pillar of recovery. And they're pleased that this Friday as part of the UN general assembly high level week we will be discussing the importance of the accelerator and the importance to really take advantage of the momentum and scale up the key changes that we need to make to see the results that we want in terms of social protection and coverage. As Eunice said we've been of course committing and working in this area for a long time and supporting different countries around making sure that we can enhance the impact on the long-term sustainability of programs. And we do have a new strategic plan that started this year which reaffirms our commitment to universal coverage and building systems but also enhancing our work on critical game changers that we think are going to make sure that the impact is there in terms of gender transformative systems in terms of inclusive systems in terms of making sure that we have the critical financing and strategies for social protection and scaling up our comprehensive approach in fragile humanitarian context making sure the systems are risk-informed and short-responsive as well as being able to deliver life-saving cash when needed. There's a few points on our vision around universal child benefits which we see as a critical end to point one building block as we think around the progressive move towards universal coverage in terms of its critical poverty impact the potential of political support given that it's covering a broad range of families and sectors. Its potential of strengthening the social contract as of course a shared commitment to the well-being and development of countries' children and future generations. Addressing stigma that enable families and children to participate fully in their communities and of course reduce stigma that is associated with poverty and inequality but also as a base or a critical entry point to make sure that we have coverage but then we are better able to enter and integrate other elements that make social protection impactful in terms of design inclusive design and risk-informed design. I think a critical point that when we think and talk about universality including universal child benefits there's always this perception that nobody can think about universal systems unless they're fully developed unless there is sustained growth. And I think it's important and the reason which I wanted to include this slide is that in many contexts that right now have institutional as universal systems for universal child benefits they started to think and they started to prioritize this work even in earlier in their development which of course with very progressive paths towards universality and with different and mixed financing strategies to reach that goal. And my last slide is to provide some examples on countries that are very different stages of development that have been already starting and committed to the importance of universality where they've integrated and realized that having child grants as an entry point is not only possible but as a critical entry point to start thinking about the most comprehensive, inclusive and important systems such as the Gate of Armenia, Burundi and many others included in this slide. Let me finish by saying that we are in a very important momentum but I think there's commitment and recognition of the role of social protection to address many of the issues that we encountered previous for the pandemic. But it's also a moment where we need to come together in making sure that we make those critical changes to address change. And again, I hope that we can continue to work together as a one-year family with the support of many, many of you to make sure that we realize this critical goal. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much for this introduction, Natalia and Behal for UNICEF and thank you for partnering with us in this series. Thank you also for reconfirming the proven impact of social protection in reducing poverty specifically child poverty and achieving greater gender equality and inclusion. I think you also pointed clearly to the large gaps in coverage that still remain but beyond that to the importance of ensuring the adequacy of social protection scheme as well as the importance of increasing and sustaining financing for social protection. Thank you also for highlighting the vision and the effort undertaken by UNICEF on the universal child benefit which are indeed so important. So thank you again, Natalia. And now before we hear from our other speaker, I would like to play the video message that we have received from His Excellency, Ambassador Villegas, permanent representative of the Campina to the UN in Geneva and president of the UN Human Rights Council. Dear participants, it is a pleasure for me to be part of this important dialogue on social protection organized by far like liaison office with the United Nations in Geneva and partner agencies such as ILO and UNICEF. The world is enduring several crises at the same time, all of which have huge human rights impact and long lasting consequences. The COVID-19 pandemic with a weak recovery and the risk of stagflation, climate change and more recently, the war in the heart of Europe. The occurrence of these world-shaping events simultaneously magnifies their impact and pose challenges that cannot be addressed in an isolated manner. Human rights are severely impacted by these events but at the same time, the human rights perspective is the solution to overcome these events. A global food, fuel and finance crisis now risk plunging millions into food insecurity and poverty. 1.7 billion people in over 100 countries are severely exposed to at least one of these three crises. It is my firm belief that a human rights-based approach is the best way to reverse these negative trends and to address these challenges. In that regard, we need to recall that social protection is a human right enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights. But yet, today, 4 billion people, more than half of the world's population, still do not have access to any social protection. Investment in social protection as a key instrument for poverty reduction and inclusive growth, including in rural areas, can lead to more productive societies by providing better access to food, water, health, shelter and schooling. Lack of investment in social security, on the other hand, can result in arrested development and may lead to protest and social unrest. States recognize the important role of social protection as a stabilizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. They adopted several innovative measures such as expanding the coverage of social protection to informal workers, migrants and specific vulnerable populations, including a gender-responsive perspective, leveraging digital innovation in delivery mechanisms of social protection and enacting legislative reforms to support employees and the self-employed. Beyond the human rights imperative, emerging evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the power of universal social protection systems. Universal systems enable countries to scale social protection more effectively and efficiently. Almost all countries that were able to fully implement a first wave of payments within a few months leverage existing registries and identification systems with high or almost universal coverage. It is imperative, therefore, that we continue discussing both how to mobilize domestic resources as well as ways in which international cooperation and debt relief can contribute to provide sufficient fiscal space for states to invest in social protection and advance towards the achievement of the SDGs. That's why today's meeting is of utmost importance. It is an opportunity to catarise synergies among different actors, including states, UN system agencies, and other development partners on achieving the 17 sustainable development goals and towards delivering progress on strengthening and extending social protection systems as a key element of strategies seeking to promote resilient, inclusive, and sustainable food systems. I wish you all the year participants a fruitful discussion. Many thanks. Thank you very much for this message, Ambassador Villegas. You have reminded us that social protection is a human right enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights, but that in spite of this, 4 billion people are not still enjoying access to any form of social protection. You pointed out that investing in social protection, including in rural areas, is necessary for more productive societies and drew attention to the importance of mobilizing domestic resources for expanding access to social protections to all. So you told us that the international community needs to collaborate with states in supporting them to mobilize the resources they need. So thank you very much for that. Je voudrais maintenant donner la parole à notre première intervenance en excellence, Monsieur l'ambassadeur Omar Zuniver représentant Permanente du Maroc a Prédénaissance Unie à Genève. Monsieur l'ambassadeur, vous avez la parole and I would like to remind participants to open the chat box to read the English translation of the ambassador's address. Monsieur l'ambassadeur, vous avez la parole. Thank you so much, dear Mr. Virgin. Indeed, I have prepared my intervention in French language. It could have been possible, of course, to do it in English, but I was informed that equally I could use French language from which I could be probably better understood. Merci beaucoup. Je pense que le sujet que vous avez choisi cet après-midi, je vous en félicite, comme cela d'ailleurs a été souligné par les intervenants pédécesseurs, est devenu d'une extrême importance pour tous les pays et pour la communauté internationale en tant que tel. En guise d'introduction, je voudrais juste dire, je crois que tout a été dit sur le caractère fondamental essentiel de l'universalisation de la protection sociale, et compris dans le monde rural. Je ne reviendrai pas. Je voudrais juste dire que pour nous, c'est une question également qui fait l'objet d'un intérêt particulier à tel point que nous l'appellons chez nous un sentier royal. C'est-à-dire que le chef de l'Etat, Saint-Majustin Laurent-Mahmoudi, s'implique personnellement, étape par étape, depuis le début, pour accompagner cet universalisation chez nous en York. À côté de cela, naturellement, toutes les institutions, tous les acteurs, sont mobilisés d'une manière exceptionnelle. Je parle du Parlement. Naturellement, ça va sans dire du gouvernement, mais aussi des syndicats de la société civile, plus globalement, et bien sûr des représentants des employeurs et des employés, tellement le sujet naturellement nécessite l'intervention et les efforts de tous. Alors tout cela a débouché sur l'annonce par Saint-Majustin Laurent-Mahmoudi, de manière solonnaire, le 29 juillet 2020, du projet d'universaliser la protection sociale en Maroc, d'ici la fin de 2025. Selon les étapes que j'ai déjà soulignées, la première est celle de la généralisation de l'assurance-maladie obligatoire, dit chez nous à mot, durant les années 21 et 22. C'est-à-dire que d'ici la fin de l'année, de l'année en cours, la généralisation de l'assurance-maladie sera offerte à tous les citoyens marocains. Deuxièmement, la généralisation des allocations familiales avant la fin de 2024, progressivement. Troisièmement, l'élargissement au lendemain de 2025, de l'assiette des adhérents au régime de retraite pour inclure les personnes qui exercent un emploi et ne bénéficient aujourd'hui dans qu'une pension. Beaucoup d'artisans, de petites professionnes dites libérales, cela est bien connu en Maroc, bénéficieront désormais de cet élargissement au régime de retraite d'ici 2025. Et enfin, la généralisation de l'endiminité pour perte d'emploi également pour 2025. Vous voyez, c'est un chantier très important, un chantier énorme pour un pays comme le Maroc, parce que je voudrais le souligner. Mon pays s'est consacré, disons, ces deux dernières décennies, à un programme essentiel de mise en route des infrastructures, de façon très prononcée. Les autoroutes, les aéroports, les ports dans le domaine de la santé également, dans le domaine de la logistique, etc. Et puis, l'urbanisme dans les villes, tout cela a transformé réellement le visage du Maroc. Mais en même temps, cet investissement, c'est important, il n'a pas été accompagné sur le plan social par les mêmes efforts. Et cela a été relevé. Malgré naturellement la prise en conscience du caractère essentiel du développement social, du développement humain chez mon mort. Donc il s'agit aujourd'hui de se concentrer de la même manière que cela a été fait sur la question des infrastructures, sur la question de la connectivité, etc. dans le pays, de se concentrer de la même manière dans le volet social. Alors cela, juste pour vous donner une idée, ce plan qui va jusqu'en 2025, celui-ci aujourd'hui, par l'adoption de 22 décrets. Le décret, c'est quand même une décision gouvernementale qui demande aussi beaucoup d'efforts. Ce n'est pas une simple arrêtée ministérielle, etc. C'est à impliquer l'ensemble des gouvernements. Avec aussi l'ambition d'ouvrir aux travailleurs non salariés comme je dis, l'accès à la serence maladie obligatoire, ce qui fera que, à la fin de cette année, l'ensemble des marocains seront concernés. Sur le plan budgétaire, il faut aussi donner ce chiffre la gestion de ces programmes à l'horizon 2025 nécessitera d'allouer un montant annuel total de ses comptes et un milliard de diras. Un peu plus de 5 milliards de dollars dans la moitié sera prise en charge par l'État marocain. Donc ce n'est pas une commande des paroles avancées. Il y a le plan de financement et d'arité bien précisément aussi bien du côté gouvernementale que des autres contributeurs, des autres acteurs. Maintenant laissez-moi, si en quelques minutes on me concentrait sur l'impact de cette politique, de cette stratégie, puisqu'il m'a été demandé d'expliquer essentiellement le cas du Maroc, l'impact de cette stratégie sur le monde rural. En effet, en février 2020, vers la stratégie, ce qu'on appelle chez nous, Génération Green, nouvelle stratégie de développement du secteur agricole pour la période 2020-2030, et qui vient compléter un ensemble de plans et de programmes stratégiques également liés au développement du monde rural tel que le plan de développement des énergies renouvelables, le programme prix international d'approvisionnement non potable et d'irrigation qui court jusqu'en 2027, la stratégie de développement du domaine forestier de 2020-2030, le programme de réduction des disparités territoriales et sociales, encore le deuxième programme national des routes rurales. Il s'agit de milliers de kilomètres, je vais parler des infrastructures, ça tombe aussi dans le cadre de ce programme et les routes rurales, qui sont chaque année élargies par des milliers de kilomètres. Voilà. Alors, l'élément central de cette nouvelle stratégie agricole est la valorisation de l'élément humain. Cela a été souligné très fortement cet après-midi. À travers l'émergence du nouvel classe moyenne agricole, et cela en permettant à 400 000 ménages d'accéder à la classe moyenne, selon des critères retenues, et d'y stabiliser 690 000 par le biais de quatre piliers. L'amélioration des revenus des agriculteurs, la généralisation de l'assurance agricole, comme pour le reste, l'alignement du salaire minimum agricole garantie au salaire minimum industriel, dans le secteur du commerce et des professions libérales à l'horizon de 2028, parce qu'on avait, effectivement, deux salaires minimums marocs qui seront alignés, le salaire minimum agricole, étant nettement plus bas que l'autre, mais ils seront alignés selon le programme orété d'ici 2028. Et enfin, la mise en place d'un cadre spécial pour l'agriculteur, nous permettant, comme je l'ai bien souligné, de bénéficier des services de protection sociale. Concernons ce dernier pilier, qui nous intéresse particulièrement cet après-midi. Et sachons que l'agriculture représente environ 40% des actifs occupés jusqu'à 15% du PIB. Le ministère de l'Agriculture, en coopération avec les partenaires gouvernementaux ainsi que les fédérations et la station professionnelle agricole, a réalisé une étude détaillée pour déterminer les catégories et les gris de cotisation de la population des agriculteurs, puis lancer une campagne de collectes de données en vue d'élaborer les listes des agriculteurs avec les informations repices. Cela a abouti à l'établissement du schéma suivant. La cotisation au régime de l'assurance maladie obligatoire a été déterminée entre 117 et 1080 diables, c'est-à-dire entre 11 et 100 francs suisses à peu près, selon les différentes catégories. En termes de résultats, et depuis le lancement de cette campagne, 841 000 agriculteurs ont été inscrits jusqu'en mai dernier, à la question nationale de sécurité sociale, sur les 1,6 millions d'agriculteurs devant ont bénéficié dans un pays. Et cela, sans prendre compte les mondes de leurs familles qui sont également bénéficiaires. De manière générale, notre profonde conviction marque est que les efforts entrepris pour la généralisation de la protection sociale en France feront de l'ensemble de la population, mais en particulier des agriculteurs. Et au-delà des avantages directs dont bénéficient ces derniers auraient un impact direct sur le développement du monde rural de manière plus globale. Cette généralisation permettra en promis de préserver les équilibres sociaux en luttant contre la précarité. Elle permettra également, entre autres, d'accéder au travail des sons, de lutter contre le travail des enfants et par conséquent contre la discolarisation de limiter l'exode rural, particulièrement marqué après la succession de différentes stresses qui, malheureusement, frappent le Maroc et aussi de générer de nouvelles dynamiques sociales à même de créer des opportunités d'emplois supplémentaires et de consolider en gros la croissance au niveau national. Je voudrais aussi insister sur un fait très important c'est que le Maroc, dont c'est politique de coopération, en particulier avec nos voisins et frères africains, nous partageons ces expériences. Il y a un certain nombre de colloques, de sémunaires, de rencontres, voire même de conférences qui se tiennent chez nous en Maroc sur ces thématiques pour que le Maroc puisse bénéficier de l'expérience des autres avec, y compris bien sûr, la contribution des institutions internationales concernées comme la vôtre, comme l'unicef, comme toutes les institutions qui, bien sûr, le BIT et aussi je voudrais en conclusion, cher Monsieur Bourbon, dire que pour illustrer tout ce que je viens de dire en terme de coopération au niveau international, régional et local, de rappeler que le Maroc organise à Marrakech du 24 au 28 octobre prochain le Forum mondial de la Sécurité sociale sous le thème la Sécurité sociale pour des sociétés résilientaires inclusives auquel ce Forum, bien sûr, j'en suis persuadé certains et certains parmi les organisations que vous représentez contribueront de manière très prononcée comme va le faire d'ailleurs le BIT et d'autres. Et je vous remercie. Voilà donc ce que j'avais partagé avec vous cet après-midi en ce qui concerne l'expérience de Maroc dans ce domaine encore une fois vite. Merci beaucoup. Je vous remercie beaucoup, Monsieur l'ambassadeur pour votre intervention et une exclère de des efforts undertaken by Maroc to generalise social protection in the country are considerable and the progress made impressive under the leadership of the head of state in what we could describe as a whole of society effort. I was particularly interested in what you said about your conviction that the generalisation of social protection for the entire population and in particular for farmers with a direct impact on the development of the rural areas more generally. Also thank you for highlighting the South South cooperation dimension of your effort. So your expertise is benefiting other countries and you are benefiting also from the others and for informing, drawing attention on the world social security form that will be in Marrakesh from 24 to 28 October. So thank you very much, excellency for your intervention. And we'll now move to our next speaker and here from His Excellency Ambassador Pextain, the bird's wearer, the permanent representative of Belgium to the UN in Geneva. Ambassador Pextain, you have the floor. Well, thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I think I can be fairly short because much has been already said by the previous speakers. But let me first say that universal social protection is a priority for Belgium. And this week in New York, actually, our Prime Minister will join the UN Secretary-General and ILO Director-General Guy Reider to in promoting the global accelerator on job and social protection. So a high level event in Europe, in New York during the the GA Special Week. Also our Minister during the ILO conference in June, highlighted social protection as a priority, as a strategic priority for the organization. And let me also mention, speaking about ILO, that Belgium has the honor to chair the tripartite working group on the review of ILO standards. And for the last two years, a key question has been to extend social security instruments and benefits for occupational accidents and diseases to the agricultural sector, to agricultural workers. And that brings me then to agriculture indeed. And I think it has been said probably it is estimated that between 70% and 50% of the world's workers are in the agricultural sector. And a recent joint ILO FAO report indicates that the agricultural sector concentrates many challenges to decent work. These include poverty, informality, and child labor. So I think it's really great that we see this cooperation between FAO and ILO on these issues. And I would certainly encourage both organizations to continue doing that. And I think this webinar is also a good illustration of that. Let me know, perhaps mention a few issues that require further work and reflection and discussion. And also this webinar can be the opportunity for doing that. The first one is finance. Financing, universal social protection. That's a big challenge, of course. We're speaking about, you know, big amount here. And clearly we need to involve the International Financial Institution, the Bretton Woods Institution into these discussions in order to have the financial means necessary. The second issue in my view is really to create an inter-agency, inter-organizations movement in direction of universal social protection. As we heard, I think it's Maximo told us that. There is already a task force between the different organizations. That's a very good start. But we really need to, I think, go beyond that, give more visibility and a real partnership to make it happen. Then a third difficult issue is how to include the informal sector. The informal workers in a social protection scheme. That's not easy. That's very complex. And finally, I would say national ownership. That's, to me, that's very key. If we don't have national ownership, it's not going to work. I mean, we can have a very nice program, but we need really, at the country level, we need to see, you know, the will, the political will to mobilize the means to have the will to go for it. And that's the only condition for success in my view. And I must say, we just heard my colleague, my good colleague, the ambassador of Morocco. And I think what he said, it's exactly that, what that we need. A national vision to make it happen. So congratulations to Morocco, really. And I hope that all the countries will follow that example. And we really, as I say, we have to create a movement, to create a coalition to make it happen. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Excellency, for your remarks, for reaffirming that universal social protection is a top priority for your government. That is championed, as you said, at the highest level of government, including this week in New York, and for reminding us of the particularity of the agriculture sector, with indeed a lot of informality, and for giving us, I would say, almost a roadmap for what we should cover in the coming dialogues as part of this series, as was already mentioned by some of the previous speakers in terms of financing of the social protection involving the Bretton-Wood institutions, the importance of creating, as you said, an interagency movement to go beyond what exists there to include the informal sector and to above all ensure national ownership. So thank you very much for your comment and support. We certainly keep you involved as we move forward with this series. We know here from two other colleagues, respectively, Ms. Rima El-Aja, Head of Economic and Marketing Services in the Ministry of Agriculture of Lebanon, and Mr. Steve Chiwere, Assistant Director of Social Welfare in the Ministry of Community Development and Social Welfare of Zambia. Ms. El-Aja will first talk to us about the experience in Lebanon in the expansion of coverage of social insurance to small family farmers. Ms. Aja, the floor is yours. Hello everybody. Go ahead. I believe you can start. Yes. Okay. Can you put it in the stress and increase the screen, please? It seems to be a neck over when you speak. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes, very well. Please go ahead. Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. So let me start. Okay, I will be talking about the expanding of the coverage of social protection to vulnerable farmers in Lebanon through the farmer registry establishment that we are doing now. Can you please move to the next slide? Okay, so I will start with a brief about the country and the agricultural sector. Lebanon now is going through multi-severe, multi-phase crises, causing multi-dimensional poverty to nearly double, which is nearly doubled from 42% in 2019 to 82% in 2021. The impact of the crisis is especially acute on the farmers, you know, and the agricultural sectors, which are traditionally the poorest segment of the population. I will give you just a brief about the number, total numbers of holders in Lebanon. It's 170,000, 8.6% of which are females. Unfortunately, these data are from the last answers in 2010. We don't have updated information on the farmers. And the permanent family agriculture labels 165,000. So this is a big number in most of the families. Can we go to the next slide? The inferrility of the agricultural sector in Lebanon partially explains the limited access to social protection of farmers and fishers. The main legislation related to the laborers excluded all the agricultural sectors. The Lebanon labor code in 1946 excluded farm and farmers workers also from the code. The code of obligation and contracts, even though it covers the category of agricultural workers and domestic worker in private home, it does not mention any intervention related to the organization of or protection within the agricultural sectors. Also, the social security code in 1962, which is the base of the establishment of the National Social Security Fund. Also, in the first phase, the agricultural workers were excluded and it was added in the second phase and only for the Lebanese permanent agricultural workers. Also farmers and fishers can still benefit from the following social protection schemes from the National Poverty Targeting Program. And this is food e-card issued for the extreme poor Lebanese population. Health covered by the Ministry of Public Health provide health assistance to all and ensured Lebanese estimated to be around 50% of the population. Health and social services within the Ministry of Social Affairs also provide primary health services at the regional centers. The High Relief Council, which is a multi-ministerial entity charged with providing emergency relief in times of natural and or man-made disasters. And also the Ministry of Agriculture who provide support and subsidies like supporting access to agriculture inputs, for example, for small-scale farmers. And it was done via vouchers and Ministry Donors Vouchers Program in 2021-2022 for the last two years to 36,000 farmers like a total, as an example, of 10 million dollars. Can we go to the next slide? The National Agricultural Strategy in 2025 also was developed also with the support of AOO. Also the main pillars also strengthen and focus on the support of the farmers and the development of social protection to them. So for the pillar one in the first program ensure and facilitate access to inputs and tools to maintain agricultural production capacity like in-kind and cash assistance like subsidies and vouchers. And the program two also facilitate access to subsidized agronome for farmers and small and medium enterprise. And the pillar five and the program four create enabling conditions for the development of agriculture insurance also to mitigate the impact of natural disasters. Program five develop a social protection system for vulnerable farmers, farm workers, producers and fishermen ensuring the coverage by the social insurance system including medical insurance also ensuring the coverage of eligible farmers by the National Poverty and Agriculture Program. Next slide please. So the establishment of a farmer registry was coming as a response to this a scoping mission led also by FAO in 2015 determined that the farmer registry is one step to guarantee a better coverage of social protection of farmers. Agriculture is not a former employment sector in Lebanon. We have no existing social security benefits for farmers and farm workers and we need to expand, we need there's a need for expansion of social protection coverage to rural areas. In fact, the major activities still need to be implemented to guarantee a legal access to social security for farmers and ensure the financial feasibility of this object. The collection of information through the farmer registry and the extension of coverage of the NPTP to farmers will be essential to move forward in this process. Next slide. So for coming up to the farmer registry establishment it's a long journey and most of the action was the support also of FAO. The journey started with the statistical farmer registry management was in the, but this was the data of the census 2010 and it was only statistical farmer registry. Then a study visit to France with the TIEX program explained and clarified the difference and the need and how will be the need to develop and establish an administrative farmer registry. Then a pilot phase of the farmer registry with FAO project in 2017 was conducted into the different region in Lebanon and the 500 farmers were registered at that time. And all the need for the registration was assessed with all concerned sectors, Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Economy and Trade and we get the recommendations and the learning session that we are using now for the establishment of the actual and the real farmer registry. Also a draft law was prepared in the first stage and this law was revised in 2021 and it was presented to the parliament and referred to the council of ministers and still they didn't yet get all the comments on it. Also participation to the course e-coaching on social protection towards responsive system was the FAO and the ILO in May 2021 also improves the knowledge regarding the extension of social protection in agri-sectors. And now going to the phase of the farmer registry, the software now is ready to use. All the elements were prepared with consultation with the different departments within the ministry to see all the needs that we need to include in it and we are in the preparation phase for a launch in two months maybe, hopefully. Next slide. So what does the farmer register provide? The farmer register will provide a unique identification of the farmer for any commitment in the agricultural sector. Also a transparent and fair distribution of the subsidies when we'll have it, when we'll have any subsidies will be also the farmer register will be a reliable source of information for agricultural policy and statistics. And the location of parcel and land cover we will use several layers within the farmer register to confirm the land and parcel. And the farmer registry will be easy to will help and to record and to control whatever declared by the farmer for any social and for the social benefits and for the subsidies. Next slide please. So the farmer registry we are establishing will is composed from four modules. The first module component in the farm data. So all the farm assets, the animals, the machinery information about the workers and the farmers livelihood conditions including socioeconomic and demographic information. The second module, this is the land parcel and location identification data. This is a GIS based module. Also to identify the land parcel and the farm. The third module of the farmer registry will include farmers targeting module. This module enables the creation of sub registries through the reclassification of farmers according to specific criteria and indicators using screening, weighting and ranking process for the farmers. And to finally getting the information to the fourth module, which is the voucher scheme management module and which will be directed for agriculture support for sure and will be automatically generated vouchers. So this is an example just to have a view on the farmer registry how it's looked like with also the land parcel identification maps and which will be drawn in the map directly. Next please. So in conclusion, by creating an official list of farmers and fishers also which are included in the farmer registry for Lebanon and through coordination with our relevant institution, the farmer registry can create a legally recognized list of farmers who could be enrolled into a specific social insurance regime in Lebanon knowing that 75% of farmers are not registered in the National Social Security Fund. Also the farmer registry will allow to expand the coverage of social protection through rural areas by effectively identifying farmers and fishers in need according to their livelihoods and socioeconomic characteristics and enhancing their access to agriculture and social services. Also the farmer registry will guarantee the availability of reliable information and timely information for the formulation of agriculture policy that are knowledge-based and transparent, including policy pertaining to promoting economic inclusion and rural livelihoods. And that's all. Thank you for. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Ja, for your intervention. Thanks a lot for explaining how those informally implied in the agriculture sector in Lebanon face specific challenges in indeed accessing social protection and for showing how to help overcome some of these challenges. You are adapting the farmer registry so that it can be used for expanding access to social insurance amongst small-scale farmers. This is an interesting example of all different sectors, agriculture and social security can come together to expand access. So thank you very much. I think it's again a very telling experience. And I would like to move to Mr. Chiweli with going to talk to us about the experience of Zambia in the expansion of social cash transfer program. Mr. Chiweli, the floor is yours. Thank you for being with us. Thank you very much, moderator. And apologies for joining the meeting a little late. I had a few technical glitches, but we managed to sort out that. Good afternoon, colleagues. Good morning, depending on where you are on the globe. As already introduced, my name is Stephen Chiweli. I am a project coordinator for the JULO project, specifically focusing on the component of a social cash transfer project implementation unit supported by the World Bank and other cooperating partners. So I work in the department in the Minnesota of our community development and as social services. Before I proceed, allow me just to thank the organizers of this event for giving us on an opportunity to have a ministry to showcase what we are trying to do in the advancement of the social protection agenda. My presentation basically will focus on the moderator indicated on the expansion of a social cash transfer and also the policies, programs that have informed this expansion. And we also talk about the role of cooperating partners in the programming of a social cash transfer and future plans for the expansion. So this is the outline of the presentation. We'll look at the introduction program objectives, the coverage of the social cash transfer over time, drivers, growth expansion, role of our cooperation partners in catering and the future plans. Next, yes, like I indicated, I work in the Minnesota of our community development and social services. And the ministry has a mandate to deliver social assistance programs. And we're talking about programs like social cash transfer itself, food security pack, supporting women livelihoods, public way of the assistance scheme, and also women empowerment. But I must indicate that social cash transfer is the flagship program. It was started in the year 2003 in Southern province, Kalomo district, with only 169 beneficiaries. And after some time, this was extended to three other districts, Gazungola, Shepata, Monzey, and Kattete. So from the year 2003, the social cash transfer has undergone a lot of changes that has evolved into a national program. We started as a project supported by GIZ. And now it's become a national program, though it's running as a project. And I'm happy to announce to you that we are in all the communities. We are in all the 116 districts. We are in all the provinces. And right now, we stand at over 973,000 households in case in teams of households that we are supporting. So the growth has taken place because of the commitment that we have from the ministry, the commitment from government and other cooperating partners. And I must indicate that we have received a good will from governments or the successive governments and also the cooperating partners who worked so hard to ensure that we are where we are right now. Next slide. So in terms of objectives, the objective of the social cash transfer program is to contribute to the reduction of extreme poverty and also the intergenerational transfer of our poverty. And we try to look at the five main areas in terms of our specific objectives as income, education, health, food security, and livelihood. So on income, we try to supplement and not replace household income. And education, we try to contribute to the increase of our number of children enrolled and attending primary school education, especially those that come from social cash transfer households. And on health, we try to contribute to the reduction of illnesses, mortality issues, and also mobility for passing on children and five years old. And then food security, we try also to contribute to household food security. At livelihoods, we're also trying to contribute to the increase of a number of households that are owning assets. And if you look at the assessments, the studies that have been conducted so far, they point to the fact that households receiving social cash transfer have been able to make progress in these five areas that have been highlighted. Can go down? Yes, so basically, this graph just shows how we have moved in terms of expansion of social cash transfer, like I indicated, we started in the year 2003 with only 169 beneficiaries. And in 2020, we were able to move at 2,807. And the scale up continued right now. We are at 973,000 households. And before the end of the year, we have a projection to reach 1 million and 27,000 households that is before the end of the year. We've started the scale up activities or targeting our process last for a period of about two to three months. And before the end of the year, we will be able to onboard new beneficiaries on the program. So in terms of targets, we are targeting five men groups or categories. We are targeting the female-headed households. We are targeting the child-headed households. We are targeting the elderly, the households with a member of the disability, and the chronically even, and on palliative care. And I must indicate that we are making steps to include more categories because we have realized that there could be possibly other categories that may be vulnerable and not covered within the five categories that we are working with right now. Please go down. Yes, so in terms of drivers of growth for the expansion, this expansion has been necessitated because of the evidence that has been built around the social cash transfer programming. There are so many studies, assessments that have been conducted so far on our site, the 2014 social cash transfer impact evaluation. And actually, we are in the course of having another impact evaluation. And from this evaluation, we're able to see that there are a lot of benefits accruing to beneficiaries as a result of this intervention. And one of the recommendations was that we increase the transfer value. We also expand in terms of the numbers of people that get to benefit from this program. And then we have the National Social Protection Policy, which identified social assistance as one of key areas in terms of basically looking at social cash transfer programming. And it guided on how we should move forward in terms of progression, in terms of numbers. And because of that, we have seen a rapid scaleup of social cash transfer in Zambia. And because of the same, we've also seen enhanced wider coordination where the cooperating partners and other development partners come in just to support the work that we are doing. And then we are also guided by the National Development Plans, talking about the seventh, eighth National Development Plans, which gives guidance on how social rotation programs should be executed. And then the buy-in from government also has been very, very helpful in our expansion and growth. Yes, so the slide focuses on the role of our cooperating partners. We have received a lot of support, like I indicated earlier. We are where we are right now because of the support that we continue to get from cooperating partners. We're talking about our financial support. Right now, we are running with a total budget of over $160 million years. That's the annual budget. So we have a funding family, both from cooperating partners and also government. And then technical support and the technical support. We have systems that are being built, like the Zambia Integrated Social Protection Information System, the Grievance Mechanizing, the Financial Management Systems, and other areas of our programming. So we've also been assisted in the aspect of our evidence computing. We've had an opportunity to engage consultants through cooperating partners on a number of areas. And also the passive development. And that will also have been helped with issues of procurement of assets and so on and so forth. Let's go down. Can you please try to wrap up soon, Mr. Shiwari? OK, thank you so much. And we've also seen a failure of technical assistance from our cooperating partners. Like I indicated, we have the Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is an accounting package that we're rolling out. And then we've also been assisted in the rollout of this piece, which is a payment system, which allows us to track the payments just in order for us to give comfort to the partner as well, supporting us. And we have been assisted in the official identification selection, the grievance mechanism that I talked about. And we have enhanced program communication with communication strategy that we are using to communicate what we are doing. And we have also a comprehensive M&G framework that we've put in place with support from the cooperating partners. And then the program management also has been strengthened and also the program management. I should be concluding. This is where we are in terms of status. Can go down. So for the future plans, we have a plan to increase the coverage. And next year, we're looking at scaling up to, I guess, about 1.3 million. And also, we are looking at increasing the transfer value. And also, we are looking at making social cash transfer more adaptive. There's a program that is coming on board, which is scaling up a shock-responsive social protection that will build on social cash transfer. And it's a term that stabilizes the flow of our cash transfers. And also, we're trying to build a buffer stock for emergencies. And we're also trying to invest in other cash-plus interventions. And we're also seeing that graduation has been a challenge. And we're trying to actualize the aspect of our graduation pathways. I think this is where I end my presentation. Thank you so much for the time. Thanks for the question. Thank you so much, Mr. Chiwede, for your intervention. You clearly described how the government sees this program as an instrument for human and livelihood development. Actually, in fact, it appears to be a central element of the country's national development plan. And you were referring to the significant budget that are being invested there. And the coverage of the program has grown, indeed, gradually and steadily over time. And there is a further plan to expand it, as you mentioned, also referring to the cash transfer and the cash-plus program that will benefit all extremely poor and vulnerable households in the country. So thank you very much for that, Mr. Chiwede. Thank you for joining us today. And I would like to welcome our two discussants today. We'll offer their perspective on this topic. And on what has been discussed so far, we have respectively Mr. Stephen Devereux, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and Ms. Cristina Belland, Head of Social Policy Unit in Iowa. Mr. Devereux, I understand you will first leave your reflection on the discussion and more specifically of the expansion of coverage in rural areas. Mr. Devereux, the floor is yours. I'm not sure if I was first in the program, but I don't mind if the PowerPoint is ready to be flighted. Can somebody upload the PowerPoint, please? Good. Firstly, I'd like to say good afternoon to everybody, and thank you so much for this opportunity to contribute to this very interesting and important dialogue. I want to use the next few minutes to make some high-level comments on the topic of this meeting. If we compare social protection coverage in rural Africa 25 years ago with now, then clearly much has changed for the better in the last quarter century. Most fundamentally, millions of Africans who had no access to any form of social protection in the late 1990s are now covered to varying extents. I want to look briefly at two success stories, Ethiopia and South Africa, that tell very different trajectories. In Ethiopia, the introduction of the productive safety net program in 2005 immediately delivered benefits to 4 million Ethiopians. And this has steadily increased over the years to about 10 or 11 million Ethiopians today. Expansion has also been horizontal across livelihood systems in the sense that the PSNP started as a program to protect farmers in the highlands, but has subsequently extended to carapastrists and agro-pastrists in the lowlands, despite the additional challenges of reaching those groups. The PSNP is now in its fifth cycle and has established itself as one of the biggest social assistance programs in Africa. And it will probably continue delivering benefits indefinitely. In 2016, the urban PSNP was launched. So there was an extension from a rural to urban areas, but on a much smaller scale than the rural PSNP, where the risk and severity of food insecurity are still considered to be significantly higher. Turning now to South Africa, when the child support grant was introduced in 1998, it initially reached only a few thousand children. But it now reaches 12 million children in poor families, about two-thirds of all children in South Africa. This program does not differentiate between urban and rural. It was always a national program from the outset. Coverage was and is based entirely on assessed need with no geographical targeting. Farm workers who are seasonally unemployed for instance, can also benefit from the child support grant. Despite these successes and many others throughout Africa, substantial challenges remain in achieving comprehensive coverage of social protection in rural areas. Next slide please. At the continental level, the number of countries that actually have national-scale social protection programs is still rather small and heavily concentrated in Eastern and Southern Africa. In Central and West Africa, many countries have few functioning social protection programs and those that are in place are weakly institutionalized. So the first challenge is to support and promote the introduction of social protection programs in these later adopter countries and or to support and promote the scaling up of small projects to become national programs that achieve significant coverage of poor food insecure and vulnerable populations. Next slide please. The second challenge is within countries. To extend coverage to those who are currently not reached by existing programs, even those that appear to be national in scale. We just heard a very positive story from Steve about the scale up in Zambia. But there are other cases that are not so successful and some of these are called pseudo-universal social protection systems. Let's take two examples. Firstly, Rwanda. In Rwanda, the Vision 2020 Umarengi program or VUP, which has a very similar design to the PSNP in Ethiopia, scaled up by starting in the poorest wards in the poorest districts until all rural districts had some coverage. But very often it was one ward per district. It wasn't that there was blanket coverage of the district. So simply saying that the VUP was operational in every rural district of the country does not mean that all vulnerable or eligible households in each district were reached. Because of budget constraints and administrative capacity constraints, many wards within districts were not reached at all. The government of Rwanda also had a preoccupation with graduation. So many communities were provided with support for only two to three years before it was announced that they had graduated and the program shifted to neighboring communities. This approach would see social protection as time bound and fixated on graduating people out of so-called dependence on social assistance does not constitute regular predictable transfers to those who need it when they need it and cannot therefore be qualified as adequate coverage. Next slide. In Malawi, social protection was introduced in one or two districts through a pilot social cash transfer project which development partners evaluated as successful and tried to persuade the government to take over in terms of its management and financing and to scale it up to a national program. But the government was reluctant to do so. Instead, development partners replicated the pilot project model in other districts. The situation today, as I understand it, is that there are social assistance projects in every rural district of Malawi. But they are run and financed by several international agencies while the government itself has taken responsibility for only one district out of 27. This, of course, is highly fragmented and unsustainable. Next slide, please. A third challenge was presented by COVID-19 which had the benefit of drawing attention to a huge gap in coverage of social protection systems, not only in Africa, but across the world, namely informal workers. Many governments are now rushing to fill that gap. For example, in South Africa, a temporary social relief of distress grant was introduced in 2020 to protect workers who were forced to sit at home unemployed during COVID-19 lockdowns. That program is now in the process of being converted to a permanent basic income support grant for low-income 18 to 59-year-olds. This is an important positive development. On the other hand, since informal workers are concentrated mainly in urban areas, this might shift focus away from rural beneficiaries and risks diverting policy attention and financing towards urban areas to the relative neglect of rural areas and needs. Next slide, please. To conclude, the surge in social protection since the late 1990s has clearly benefited millions of rural Africans and is a significant achievement by governments and their development partners. However, there is still a long way to go to achieve the SDG goal of substantial coverage by 2030. So here I identify three complementary priorities. The first is to move as quickly as possible towards universal coverage of social protection for rural and urban populations throughout Africa. But here I want to note that universal coverage does not mean that all people in rural or urban areas would get free cash transfers from the government every month. It means that all people would have guaranteed access to income support from the government if and when they need it. The second priority is to institutionalize the management and delivery of social protection within African governments by strengthening beneficiary management systems and by underpinning policies and programs with framework legislation that upgrades social protection to a right thing that can be claimed by citizens and residents. The third priority is to accelerate the convergences that were highlighted by COVID-19. For instance, by harmonizing social protection program, programming and humanitarian programming through shock-responsive modalities by delivering cash rather than in-kind transfers wherever possible and by using digital rather than manual payments mechanisms again wherever possible. Last slide please. Once these three transitions are achieved, the goal of universal coverage of rural as well as urban populations in Africa will be relatively easy to reach. Maybe not by 2030, but hopefully very soon thereafter. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Mr. Devereux, for giving us a nuanced perspective indeed. I mean, huge progress made since over the last 20 years. 25 years, as you mentioned. Very good early adopters, as you mentioned, referring to Ethiopia, PSNP, and South Africa, but still gaps, gaps at, I would say, continental level, especially when it comes to Central and West Africa, as well as need to be nuanced at country level where we may look as if there is coverage, but actually there are still many people left behind that. And then the lessons from the COVID-19, of course, very important. And then for the recommendations you have made, including in terms of institutionalized social protection using government, which I think is very important. So thank you very much, Mr. Devereux, for your remarks. And I will now move to Miss Bellens, who will give us a reflection on the expert, especially when it comes to the expansion of coverage for informal workers. For the floor is the officer Christina. Thank you very much, Dominique, and hello, everyone. And I would really like to thank the FAO for organizing this excellent event. And I'm trying to start my presentation at the same time. So I really tried to be very concise because I realized that I'm the one standing between you and the time that we have for the discussion. So I'll try to be very brief and just kind of highlight some of the key points that have come out in this extremely rich session, which I think it's really excellent because it really has brought out as Stevens that kind of a lot of the progress that has happened over the last one, two decades, but also very much the challenges that we still face when it comes to covering rural populations and also agricultural workers. Let me just start with one key point. And I think this is also continuing where Steven ended. Where Steven ended, I think when we talk about national social protection systems and ways of achieving universal social protection, we have to talk about a combination of different mechanisms. So we have to talk about strengthening, well, ideally tax finance, non-contributory mechanisms, but we also need to talk about the contributory side and especially social insurance mechanisms. And as I was asked to focus particularly on workers, I will now focus the rest of my presentation mainly on the contributory side, but without forgetting the other side, which I think is extremely important and especially when we talk about agricultural workers who are one of the kind of the most vulnerable categories of workers. And I think this is really, really important that we look at this combination of different benefits and also combination of financing mechanisms. And when we think about a rights-based approach to achieve universal social protection, I think this is really about building those universal social protection systems with a very strong social protection for. And this is about also strengthening the national policy and legal frameworks and the institutional capacities, including the financing capacities. And I think Steven's example on Malawi has kind of highlighted that very much. I think what is also important, and that came out of several other presentations and several speakers have highlighted the importance to coordinate social protection policies with employment policies, but also with agricultural and other policies. I mean, also we have heard that, for example, on Lebanon when talking about the farmers registries and really kind of highlighting and facilitating access and facilitating also the pathways to really make sure that everyone is covered, workers in all types of employment. And I think one part of that story also is that when extending social protection coverage, especially to those who are currently in the informal economy, I think it's important to follow a transformative approach, which does not just provide social protection benefits, but also tries to address the decent work deficits that these workers face and also progressively also facilitate their transition from the informal to the formal economy. And this obviously is very much part also of a just transition towards kind of environmentally sustainable economies and societies and for achieving progress towards CSDGs. I'm going to jump a bit over some of the slides, but I just want to highlight work that we have been doing together with FAO on really coming up with joint policy perspectives on how that can be achieved, how social protection can be extended to rural populations in order to really to overcome these very specific barriers also that workers in the agricultural sector, but also in rural areas are facing and really try to come up with some very kind of practical advice. And I think we have seen in the examples that we have heard before, I think we have seen a lot of those points already put into practice. And I think this is really something we can all learn from. And I'll have to because I think because of the time, I'm going to skip most of that point, but I think what is really important and thinking about the very practical ways is really to extend coverage to agricultural world workers. So we know that they're still very kind of largely excluded from national legal and also policy frameworks. And sometimes quite often when they are included, the regulations are not implemented. So this is really to make sure that they are included and they're also included in practice and not just on paper. And I think what is important there also is prioritizing inclusive approaches that really include agricultural workers in general social insurance system. Also considering that quite often they are not necessarily in the agricultural sector for all the year or sometimes they combine work outside the sector during the year or even sometimes working part-time. So I think this is really important to avoid fragmentation. And I think there is our important ways also to include seasonal workers. And I think another category that we really need to think about is including migrant workers, which really constitute quite a lot kind of a large share of agricultural workers. So I'm not going to go through all the details, but I think I would really invite you to take a look at those materials. And because I think that is really helpful to develop and put these mechanisms into practice. And following on what Natalia has said also at the beginning. I think what's important also is to really combine the adequate social protection coverage for workers and including workers in all types of employment with other life cycle programs, such as as Natalia has mentioned universal child benefits. We also know that pensions play an important role. And I think that this is also a really also a key role, especially with a view also to eliminating child enforced labor, which is a very important part also of the realities in the agricultural sector and rural areas in many countries. So let me just finish with one final slide really on the kind of coming back to the topic of that session on pathways towards universal social protection. And I think we are now at a very critical point. We've seen during COVID and we now also do now with all the other crisis that have come to us. I think there has been a realization how much social protection needs to be part of economic and social policies. I think and many countries have actually invested into their social protection systems to strengthen it. So which really trying to follow a kind of a high road approach to social protection. But at the same time, we also know that many countries are facing debt crisis. They're facing high fiscal deficits. And this might prevent them actually from making the necessary investment and strengthening their social protection systems. And I think at that point, it's really important to, in a way to harness the political commitment that is there at different levels and really step out efforts to jointly accelerate progress in that regard, including through also the global accelerator on jobs and social protection for just transitions. And as Natalia has mentioned, there is an event, this might even at the General Assembly just this Friday. And I think I'll end here with this call for really these joint efforts for universal social protection. And I'll hand back to you, Dominique. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. Thank you so much Christina for your presentation, for making a few very important points of course on the criticality of extending the coverage of social protection to all the workers taking into consideration the specificities of the sector including in terms of informality, for example, but also the importance of combining different instruments for different groups, in some case social assistance, in other case social insurance. And also thank you for referring to the FAO Aero approach which provides some solutions for reaching these population groups and to the event that will take place this week in New York that was referred to by several participants and that we show that we need really to think in terms of a movement moving forward only. So thank you very much. And this shows that this is a very, very broad topic and that we need to deepen our analysis and continue coming forward from that. So unfortunately, I see that we have reached the end of the two hours. So I don't think we'll be able to engage really this time in an exchange, but I hope it will come next time. And their colleagues, Excellencies, it's clear today that we have listened to many contributions that have tied together many threats of our discussion today and given us a lot to think about. We will extract some of the key take home messages and preliminary conclusions from these discussions and propose them to you at the beginning of our next webinar. So we will have several webinars each time we'll start by what came out from the previous one. My own preliminary conclusion are that agri-food systems offer an enormous potential for achieving the SDGs. However, this is not automatic and to realize this potential agri-food system need to be inclusive and social protection can play a role in making agri-food system more inclusive and achieve that. Still today, access to social protection is too low and extending the coverage has been really a recurrent theme. There has been enormous progress that has been made as was mentioned to expand social protection, but there is still a lot to be done for ensuring that everyone everywhere, starting from the poor and most vulnerable need to have access to such social protection. And that to be adequate social protection system need to be responsive to the specificities of the population that they serve and this was another key point that came out possibly today. We have learned all Lebanon and Zambia are going about expanding coverage and our partners can support them in realizing their ambition. And in terms of expanding coverage, we have also learned from the effort that they've taken by Morocco to generalize social protection in the country and the progress made, including in terms of sharing the experience. I think this has all been very informative and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples that would benefit this community and I would like to invite you to make sure that we are made aware of these examples and that we can share them as part of this series. But before ending, of course, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the distinguished speakers who dedicated their valuable time to be with us today. I would like to thank also our partners in this series, of course, critical partners, ILO and UNICEF, as well as of course our colleagues in the FAO Inclusive Global Conformational and Gender Equality Division and my colleagues within the Geneva one within the Geneva office for organizing that. Last but not least, our gratitude goes to you, the participants for taking your time and for joining this event as part of the FAO and Geneva Social Protection Dialogue series. Thank you for your attendance. There will be more events in this series. So please reach out, make sure that all those involved in that at all level are participating and do join us at our next webinar, which will explore the role of social protection in responding to shocks, adapting to climate change and not much more. So thank you for that and I wish you a great rest of the day. Thank you and bye-bye.