By Awa Sowe
ocial protection has gained relevance and garnered increasing interest over recent decades. Developing countries are progressively adopting more programmes and policies to protect their poor and vulnerable populations, while international organisations and donors work to enhance the capacity of states to develop efficient and sustainable systems. Social protection schemes also play a key role in stabilising economies, protecting living standards and providing social security for all.
The Government of The Gambia also recognises that social protection is a critical pre-requisite for achieving national development goals; hence the formulation of a
National Social Protection Policy (NSPP), which aims to establish a comprehensive and inclusive social protection system that provides various measures to safeguard the lives of the poor and vulnerable while contributing to human development, economic productivity, and inclusive growth.
As a step towards to the attainment of the above goal, the National Social Protection Secretariat (NSPS) with support from World Bank and UNICEF recently initiated a discussion on the establishment of a unified call centre for Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) for social protection and its related issues in The Gambia
The unified call centre has been designed to strengthen and support mechanisms of social protection programmes and to improve transparency, accountability and effectiveness in grievance redress across social protections.
The Unified Grievance Redress System is equipped with a toll free number, to which citizens can call from any communication network to lodge their complaints to dedicated and trained call agents. It is an approach which provides beneficiaries the opportunity to report cases and put across their concerns for resolution.
Mr Momodou Dibba, National Coordinator of the Social Protection Secretariat noted that of recent there have been various social protection services provided across different ministries working with different development partners.The separate processes of setting up social protection redress tool in various ministries and institutions, he observed, indicate the lack of a unified coordination mechanism.
A crucial element of the call centre, according to Mr Dibba, is that different management information systems have been developed to support the administration and management of social protection interventions under these pillars. However, he said these systems have been operating in silos, resulting in “duplication and incoherence of information, wastage of resources and limited impact of social protection programmes on beneficiaries”.
He went on to explain that most often these ministries and agencies have their own structures to address grievances, which the secretariat observed will confuse beneficiaries, hence the need for a single window redress mechanism.
Mr Dibba was optimistic that the system will become robust in empowering all citizens to participate in and benefit from the social and economic transformation in the country. According to him, social protection interventions directly reduce poverty, support excluded citizens to access services, provide a foundation on which to build productive livelihoods.
The NSPS Coordinator informed that all call centre staff will be trained on certain issues; and that there will be additional capacity building programmes that will train the staff on different thematic areas of social protection.
He further explained that there will be an in-built technology that will help track the call centre agent’s performance.
