Paraguay : Defining a Strategy for Social Protection Policy
Despite the pervasive high incidence of poverty, Paraguay has not responded adequately to the need to develop a policy, aimed at providing effective protection to the population. In recent decades the social protection policies in Paraguay were not...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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Washington, DC
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/05/5184778/paraguay-defining-strategy-social-protection-policy http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15734 |
| Summary: | Despite the pervasive high incidence of
poverty, Paraguay has not responded adequately to the need
to develop a policy, aimed at providing effective protection
to the population. In recent decades the social protection
policies in Paraguay were not able to reduce the exposure
to, and the consequences of social risks, due to flawed
diagnosis, inappropriate program design, poor
implementation, and budgetary restrictions. Nonetheless, the
Government has identified some of these problems in recent
years, and attempted to formulate reform proposals, but
political and institutional obstacles prevented their
implementation. Even though the Secretary for Social Action
has developed the National Strategy for the Reduction of
Poverty and Inequity, the institutional reforms and the
protection programs proposed in it, have not been
implemented. Likewise, both from the Executive Branch, and
from parliamentary sectors, there have been attempts to
reform the pension system, but no minimal consensus was
reached, to enable discussion, and approval in Congress.
Social protection policies and programs in Paraguay result
from an approach to the problem, characterized by the
absence of an integral strategic vision. The sector evolved
as the accumulation of partial attempts to promote social
protection actions, strongly influenced by sectoral
interests, but it was rarely developed in an integrated
manner, or based on a rigorous analysis of the real needs of
the population. The report suggests that a sound proposal
for restructuring the sector, requires the explicit
formulation of a conceptual framework, in order to identify
the priorities in a rigorous manner, and establish
consistent methodologies for the selection, and execution of
actions, developing an integral vision for the social
protection policy in the country. In the context of this
report, the interest is focused on a particular type of
risk, which appears as central among the population's
multiple problems: the insufficiency of monetary resources,
expressed through poverty. In reference to that goal, we
consider the two main components of the social protection
policy: social assistance and pension systems. With respect
to social assistance, the focus is directed to programs, and
actions aimed at alleviating poverty of the population in
general. With respect to pension systems, interest is
concentrated on the actions of the State, to provide
economic security for the elderly, who have already retired
from the labor market. This report considers how
Paraguay's social protection mechanisms work for
individuals that have fallen into poverty, and lack
resources and/or skills to overcome it. Therefore, social
assistance policies are considered, while those related to
general economic, and social development are not
specifically contemplated. An effective social protection
model in Paraguay must correctly identify social risks, and
promote public actions that should not overlap, or limit
individual, family, or community-based actions, but rather
complement them. |
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