SOCIAL safety net programs such as the Philippine government’s cash- transfer program should ensure that the poor will not become dependent on dole-outs, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

Barbara Ekwall, FAO’s coordinator for the Right to Food Unit, said that safety nets can be designed in such a way as to promote the right to food and a rapid return to self-sustenance.

“Safety nets and other programs are affordable. It can be done and it is time to make it happen,” said Ekwall.

Recently, the Philippine government rolled out a P5-billion welfare subsidy program for the poorest families. Through the program, poor families get a monthly stipend of P500. It also allows poor families to get P300 a month for each child who will register an 85-percent class attendance in a month. Each family is allowed to avail itself of this stipend for up to three children.

FAO, together with the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), and the Asia-Pacific Policy Center (APPC) held consultations with several sectors on mitigating hunger in Tagaytay City starting September 2. One of their recommendations is to expand the subsidy and make it universal.

But FAO and NAPC also acknowledged that there was a need to ensure that safety nets will not result in dependency.

Ekwall said that based on the Right to Food guidelines, five concerns need to be addressed in crafting a “rights-based safety net program.”

For one, she said there is a need to determine whether aid is targeted to the poorest, the eligibility criteria are clear and known and whether there is an exit strategy to avoid dependency. Also, there is a need to determine if food aid is provided, whenever possible, in cash instead of in kind and to find out whether there are accountability mechanisms through which eligible persons can seek remedy in case the program does not reach them.

NAPC Lead Convenor Domingo Panganiban proposed the crafting of programs that “ensure that conditions for the transfer of cash are of a character as to give employment to those on relief rosters.”

The FAO commissioned APPC to undertake “Right to Food Assessment” to arrive at a “broad consensus” as to how the basic human right to food may be further instituted into the programs and development policies of the Philippine government.

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Social safety net programs should target self-sustenance, says FAO

SOCIAL safety net programs such as the Philippine government’s cash- transfer program should ensure that the poor will not become dependent on dole-outs, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

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