The role of civil society organizations in supporting social protection policies
Setting
D. Salah Hashem
Introduction
Poverty is one of the sides of the famous iron triangle of underdevelopment - poverty, ignorance and disease - which squeezes entire societies within it and cannot find people without it. Joke as a term, just as it raises sorrows in the soul and images of memory and experiences, may also raise confusion in the sociological treatment due to the dominance of its economic connotation that launches in the mind of the listener as soon as he hears the phonemes of the term. Perhaps the spread of the term poverty in economic literature as one of the two sides of the equation (wealth/poverty) was the reason behind this as a result of its economic codification in the way that made it an economic axiom that presents the meanings of material want, deprivation, and lack of resources. Economic.
However, many other concepts prevail in the modern literature related to the subject of poverty. The poor are those who are unable to obtain the basket of basic goods consisting of food and clothing. And housing, in addition to other minimum needs such as health care, transportation, and education. Other concepts related to poverty and programs and policies to combat it refer to absolute poverty and relative poverty, where the first concept gives a certain limit of income, and a family is considered poor if its income is less than this limit, while relative poverty refers to the situation in which the family’s income is less by a certain percentage than the average income in the country, and thus comparison is made in this case between different groups of society in terms of standards of living.
On the other hand, some concepts of poverty focus on different forms of deprivation, including physiological and social forms of deprivation, while the first is represented by low income (or lack thereof). And food, clothing, and housing, and hence it includes the poor of income and the poor of basic needs. As for social deprivation, it is linked to various structural inequalities such as credit, land, various infrastructures, and even public (shared) property, in addition to the inability of the “poor” to benefit from social assets such as health and educational services..
Poverty can be defined linguistically as deficiency and need. An individual is not poor for something unless he needs it because it is not available or it decreases without need. In general, three meanings of poverty can be distinguished::
-The first meaning: “social poverty,” which does not only mean imbalanced economic equality resulting from lack of income. And property and a low standard of living, but it also includes imbalanced social equality, inferiority, dependence, and feelings of inferiority and exploitation, and here poverty is relative and does not explain a certain level of income or size of property..
- The second meaning: “want and need.” It means a group of people who are unable to assert their existence on the traditional level, which is considered the lowest level without any external aid at any given time. It defines the lowest level that leads a person to the abyss. It also defines a model of social relations that indicates who are the needy people who ask for help and who helps them...? Societies distinguish between types of people in need who deserve assistance..
-The third meaning: poverty of capabilities or human poverty, as it describes a lack of capabilities of some people in their ability to obtain To enjoy good nutrition, health, education, and a decent life. This type occurs when the capabilities that the state provides to citizens are absent or weakened, which are mainly represented by public social goods, that is, services and other facilities provided, through which the state provides intangible assets, which are health, education, social protection, and other citizenship rights. Thus, this meaning expresses inequality and justice of distribution.
In brief, it can be said that poverty does not only express a person's inability to satisfy his biological needs, as economic thinkers have determined, but it also means the inability of the social structure to provide Human material and moral requirements and the impact of this on integration processes, social relations, the formation of the individual’s personality in society, the formation of his value and culture, and even the determination of his political, social and economic role and weight..
Poverty should be viewed as “a condition in which a person is unable, due to a set of objective and subjective factors, to satisfy his material and moral needs within a social system.” And culturally specific».
Poverty carries different meanings according to the views of researchers, including what is material, social, or cultural. Therefore, poverty is a complex phenomenon whose dimensions combine what is objective. (such as income, property, occupation, and class status) and what is subjective (lifestyle, pattern of spending and consumption, forms of consciousness, and culture).
Poverty is defined in sociological dictionaries as a low standard of living that does not meet the health, moral, and self-esteem needs of an individual or group of individuals. (The concept is viewed in a relative sense due to its connection to the general standard of living in society, the distribution of wealth, status structure, and social signatures). The poverty line is usually defined as the state in which an individual is unable to meet the requirements for food, clothing, and necessary shelter for himself..
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Hence it becomes clear to us that the content of poverty is not only related to deprivation and material need, but rather it is a complex phenomenon that includes multiple criteria. Some researchers believe that there is no unified definition of poverty that meets with approved consensus in the literature specialized in defining the poor or determining the poverty line, because material deprivation can be easily measured (unemployment, population crowding, etc.), while social deprivation, especially in aspects related to the absence or low participation in the social norms and events of the individual in society, and these are matters that are difficult to measure accurately, and require other measures that require different forms of field research. The Egyptian Ministry of Solidarity had a different vision of the concept of social protection... especially since it had been around 1939 - the year that witnessed the establishment of the Ministry. Egyptian Social Affairs - It uses the term social care, in addition to its use of the term social security... And when the term social protection began to appear on the horizon of international funding organizations, especially after 2011 AD, the Ministry of Solidarity began using the term... and the state even began Egypt uses the term social protection networks. The Ministry limited the concept of social protection to “a set of programs that provide temporary material assistance to low-income families.” While it linked the concept of social care to organizations that care for children, orphans, juveniles, and groups eligible for social security who receive a monthly pension for emergency or permanent circumstances, such as the families of sick people, prisoners, conscripts, and families without a breadwinner and who do not have a fixed income. Despite these differences occurring between academics and researchers on the one hand, and between the Ministry of Social Solidarity and its institutions on the other hand... international organizations have adopted the concept of Completely different from what we adopted or disagreed upon in Egypt. The United Nations, for example, defined social protection as a term completely synonymous with the term social security. It believes that if social security itself is considered a human right - according to what is stated in the International Charter of Human Rights and according to the synonymy of the two terms in the doctrine of the United Nations - then social protection is considered a human right. She added a new term to the social work literature, which is “social protection floors,” by which she meant a set of legislations aimed at reducing poverty and ensuring that people do not fall into it. It is a term that has not yet been circulated in our research literature in Egypt or even in the Arab world. The concept did not receive significant attention from policymakers in the governments of Third World countries.. 1) Social protection: concept, foundations and grounds
Social protection is a more general and comprehensive concept than all of these terms. It is a class term that has a broad meaning and a narrow meaning, and breadth and narrowness are related to the resources available to achieve goals. Social protection.
If social welfare aims to reduce the number of poor people and aims to maintain them in a state of poverty without a tangible improvement in their living or decline...then social protection aims to stabilize the poverty rate at 20% of the population and working to increase the proportion of the rich, then increasing the area of the middle class in the social pyramid... It is based on the philosophy that increasing the numbers of the rich and members of the middle class will inevitably lead to a decline in the numbers of the poor..
Governments in developed countries usually follow protection policies that include the broad meaning of social protection, which is the meaning that provides full support to all classes of society so that poverty does not expand and affect The vast majority of its population... and then its policies are built in light of this concept and accordingly it establishes programs to confront poverty... and confrontation according to this concept does not mean reducing poverty as much as it means increasing the rate of wealth... and most of its aid is conditional on education, health care and participation in production. Ultimately, it aims to bring low-income people to the stage where they are able to become self-reliant. The decline in the rate of cash support allocations year after year becomes an important indicator of the success of social protection policies and the recovery of the poor from the poverty crisis..
As for governments in poor countries, they usually tend to adopt a narrow, or even a very narrow, concept of social protection, which can be reduced to the traditional concept of the term Social care activities do not exceed only very simple aid that does not satisfy more than 30% of the needs of the poor, in addition to some activities related to the weak link in the human fabric, such as women, children, the disabled, and the elderly... which are usually educational activities.!
In general, it seems that the disagreement over the concept between academics, fields, and decision-makers has largely caused the lack of setting clear-cut social protection policies. Integration of social protection programs that are practiced within different sectors and perhaps within a single service sector... which is a real waste of countries’ efforts and resources... Perhaps this is what prompts us to demand that governments in poor societies adopt a clear concept of social protection that emulates the agreed-upon global concept... Accordingly, social protection policies are developed that all state institutions are committed to implementing... through integrated programs targeting the different classes of society... Each according to his need.. and each according to his ability..!
Here is an explanation of the integration between the concepts of social protection, social care and development through the following indicators:
Protection: Achieving minimum basic income security in the form of cash support, including poor families and the elderly. And people with disabilities, orphans and the unemployed, in addition to insurance protection as an integral part of social protection..•Contributing to securing basic social services related to health care, education, basic public services and ensuring the provision of food security And suitable housing.
Social inclusion through employment and providing income generation opportunities, which requires efforts to prepare and qualify cadres. Young women and stimulating the civil sector and the private sector to support the business sector to absorb many workers in a way that enhances individuals’ incomes on the one hand and increases the size of the domestic product on the other hand.. Caring:•An effective case management system linking social welfare services to each other as well as protection services Social.
Highly qualified and qualified cadres to provide social care services in accordance with quality standards. Approved.•A follow-up and evaluation system developed and implemented in the social care sector at the level of the General Office and the directorates affiliated with the Ministry Social Solidarity.
•An activated complaints system for all social care sector services at the level of the General Office and the directorates affiliated with the Ministry of Solidarity Social.
Development:•رفع قدرات ومهارات العاملين في مجال التنمية وحتى يمكن أداء الخدمة بكفاءة عالية.
•توسعة البرامج المحفزة لزيادة دخول المرأة المعيلة وبرامج تسهم فى رعاية الأطفال ومنعهم من التسرب من التعليم.
•توفير اعتمادات إضافية لمراكز التدريب ومشروعات التنمية من خلال مشاركات مع جهات متعددة.
•ميكنة الخدمات ذات الصلة بالصناعات الحرفية لتسهيل سبل التواصل والتسويق.
•تحـفيز المنظمات الأهـلية والقطاع الخاص للقيام بالــدور الاجتماعي والمساندة لتفعيل وزيادة الخدمات للمجتمع والأفراد.
•التوسع في عمليات الإقراض متناهي الصغر بغرض إقامة المشروعات لمواجهة ظاهرة البطالة.
•عقد الشراكات مع الجهـــات الخارجية والـداخلية لزيادة المعـارف وتعزيز المهارات بما يحقق برامج التنمية.
3) الحماية الاجتماعية والعمل الأهلي التنموي (علاقة التكامل والتأثير)
في إطار أهداف الأمم المتحدة للتنمية المستدامة 2030 التي أُطلِقَت عام 2015، فإن المنظمات الأهلية بمختلف أنشطتها ومجالات عملها تعد شريكًا رئيسًا في وضع وتنفيذ خطط التنمية المستدامة، وتنظيم المشاركة المجتمعية في تنفيذها وتقويمها، كما أن المنظمات الأهلية تُعد أداة للتواصل بين المواطنين ومتخذي القرار، بما يضمن حوارًا مجتمعيًّا حقيقيًّا مع المواطنين على المستوى المحلي، ليحقق بناء الوعي والقناعة لتنفيذ برامج التنمية المستدامة، والتي يأتي من بين أبرز أهدافها الحد من الفقر وتوفير مظلة للحماية الاجتماعية للمواطنين. ووفقاً لطبيعة ومجالات عمل المنظمات الأهلية، نجد أنها تشمل:
•مجالات الرعاية: مثل رعاية الطفولة والأمومة - رعاية الأسرة - المساعدات الاجتماعية - رعاية الشيخوخة - رعاية الفئات الخاصة والمعوقين - رعاية المسجونين - تنظيم الأسرة - أرباب المعاشات - حقوق الإنسان.
•المجالات الثقافية: كالخدمات الثقافية والعلمية والدينية - والأنشطة الأدبية.
•المجالات التنموية: كتنمية المجتمعات المحلية - التنظيم والإدارة - التنمية الاقتصادية للأسرة وتنمية الدخل - حماية المستهلك.
•مجال حماية البيئة والحفاظ عليها.
•مجال حقوق الإنسان وبناء الوعي التنموي.
وفي سياقات عمل المنظمات الأهلية نجد أنها تعمل وفي السنوات الأخيرة وبالشراكة مع كافة أجهزة مختلف الدول الحكومية على الإسهام في خلق مجتمعات قادرة على المشاركة من أجل تحقيق التنمية المستدامة التي تكفل للأجيال القادمة حقها في عوائد التنمية، وتحقق لها أمنها الغذائي ورفاهيتها وسعادتها من خلال عملية تشاركية بين تهدف ليس فقط لزيادة الناتج المحلي بل لتمكين المواطن من توسيع نطاق خياراته، وتطوير قدراته، وتحسين جودة حياته، وتعظيم منفعته ورفاهيته الاقتصادية والارتقاء بمستواه الثقافي والاجتماعي والاقتصادي.
وسعيًّا من مختلف الدول لتخفيف الأعباء عن كاهل مواطنيها وتوفير شبكة أمان اجتماعي لها، لاسيما في ظل التحديات والأزمات العالمية المتتالية وتأثيراتها الاقتصادية والاجتماعية، تقوم بجهود كبيرة في نطاقات الحد من الفقر وتوفير أنظمة الحماية الاجتماعية لدعم استقرار الفئات الأكثر احتياجاً ماديًّا واجتماعيًّا من خلال مجموعة من البرامج والمبادرات التي تتشابك في تنفيذها وبقوة المنظمات الأهلية، إدراكًا من تلك الدول بأنه حجر الزاوية لتحقيق التنمية المنشودة داخل مجتمعاتها لم يعد يقتصر فقط على أجهزة الدولة الحكومية، بل ينبغي أن يتشارك فيه كافة مؤسسات القطاع الثالث وعلى الرأس منها بلا أدنى شك المنظمات الأهلية.
فالدول التي تسعى لتحقيق أهداف التنمية المستدامة في السنوات الأخيرة باتت تؤمن بأهمية المنظمات الأهلية كفاعل رئيسي وركيزة قوية لتدعيم جهودها في الحماية الاجتماعية والحد من الفقر، ولا سيما بعد نجاحها في القيام بدور أساسي على المستويات القاعدية للمجتمع، فضلاً عن نجاحها في التواصل مع قطاعات واسعة من بسطاء الناس في الكثير من المدن الصغيرة والمراكز والتجمعات المستهدفة.
ومن هنا ينبغي أن تشرع كافة الدول التي ترجو لمواطنيها تنمية ورخاء في توحيد جهود المنظمات الأهلية والتي تعمل بداخلها تحت مظلة واحدة، لتصبح بمثابة الركيزة الأساسية في مسيرة تنميتها الشاملة، ونموذج ناجح لتكامل جهودها في الحد من الفقر، بما يضمن تشبيك الجهود والتوجيه الأمثل للموارد وتنفيذ الأولويات الهادفة إلى الارتقاء بالمستوى المعيشي للمواطنين، خاصة في المجتمعات الريفية والمناطق النائية، من خلال وضع إطار عمل مشترك مع المنظمات الأهلية للحد من الفقر وخلق حياة كريمة لمواطنيها من خلال خطط عمل تشاركية بمنهجية واضحة تدعم جهود الدولة في الحماية الاجتماعية والحد من الفقر، ويتمثل دور المنظمات الأهلية في تعزيز جهود الحماية الاجتماعية فيما يلي:
•توفير سبل الدعم المادي للأسر الأكثر احتياجاً، ومساندة الحكومات في تخفيف الأعباء عن المواطنين وتلبية احتياجاتهم بعد حصرها.
• كما يمكن أن تؤدى المنظمات الأهلية دوراً مهماً ومؤثراً في مساندة جهود الأجهزة الحكومية في دعم الفئات المستهدفة من المواطنين والأكثر احتياجاً، والمتمثلة في تقديم الدعم العيني بأشكال المساعدات الاجتماعية المختلفة للفئات الأكثر احتياجا والأولى بالرعاية.
• وكذلك يمكن أن تقوم المنظمات الأهلية بتوفير التمويل اللازم لمشروعات التمكين الاقتصادي وغيرها من المشروعات التي يمكن أن تعين تلك الفئات وغيرها على الحياة.
•فضلاً عن إطلاق مجموعة من المبادرات الدورية لتقديم الدعم للفئات فى مختلف مجالات التنمية على تنوعها من خدمية وصحية وتوعوية، وتعليمية، وعمرانية، وكذا تقديم الدعم للفئات الأولى بالرعاية والأكثر استحقاقا.
وإجمالا يجدر التأكيد على أن جهود المنظمات الأهلية التي يمكن أن تؤديها في مجالات الحماية الاجتماعية تتنوع وفقاً لاحتياجات وأهداف الخطط التنموية التي تتبناها الدولة لتشمل الدعم النقدي والغذائي والإمداد بالمستلزمات الحياتية الضرورية، كما يمكن أن تشمل تقديم الدعم العيني بأشكال المساعدات الاجتماعية المختلفة للفئات الأكثر احتياجا.
وفي ختام هذا المقال يجب أن نؤكد على أن جهود المنظمات الأهلية في الحد من الفقر في مختلف المجتمعات ترتكز على محورين أساسيين هما:
•التعبئة العامة والحشد الجماهيري نحو قضايا التنمية.
•المشاركة في تنفيذ خطط الدولة من خلال مجموعة من التدخلات يأتي من بين أبرزها:
-التنمية المجتمعية للمناطق الفقيرة والنائية.
-التدخل الرعائي الخدمي.
-توفير برامج التمكين الاقتصادي.
-دعم المشروعات الصغيرة ومتناهية الصغر.