Kenya Social Protection Support - UNICEF & WFP

Since the start of the joint programme in November 2018, Sweden has supported the Kenyan government at national and county levels to strengthen various aspects of social protection and child protection systems, spanning policy and legislation systems strengthening and service delivery and leadership, coordination and intersectoral linkages. Among the vast breadth of work and achievements during the reporting period, below are some of the key results achieved under the above three interconnected output areas: Expansion in coverage of social assistance through the programmes support to the April 2023 Kenya Social Protection Conference, the joint programme helped secure a Presidential commitment to expand coverage of the National Safety Net Programme, from 1.2 million to 2.5 million households over a two year period. This commitment is currently now being implemented. Universal social protection the programme has contributed to a paradigm shift in social protection with progressive realization of universal social protection a core part of the revised social protection policy. Piloting and documentation of a Universal Child Benefit (UCB) programme which reached over 7,000 households in three sub counties of Kisumu, Embu and Kajiado. Deepened investments in disability to ensure No One is Left Behind including in the most marginalized locations The programme was central to the development and enactment of the 2022 Children Act which is starting to greatly enhance safeguarding and protection of all children in Kenya. The Act explicitly bans corporal punishment, recognizes additional harmful practices, expands the rights of children with disabilities and addresses emerging child protection issues such as online safety, promoting care reform, and makes justice systems more child friendly. It further provides for the role of the counties in promoting child rights, their protection and general welfare. Incorporation of social protection and child protection priorities into national development planning for example, in the Medium Term Plan 4 (MTPIV) technical assistance through the joint programme ensured it made provision for vulnerable groups including ambitious plans for scaling up social protection coverage to all. The joint programme has also supported the development, review and gazettement of county Health Acts in Kakamega and Vihiga that are now underpinning two successful county maternal and child grants. The governments Enhanced Single Registry (ESR) system has received considerable assistance through the joint programme, getting it to where it is today. Also, through the joint programme, the Consolidated Cash Transfer Programme MIS and the Community Development Information Management System (CDMIS) have been designed, developed and deployed. The latter are linked to and mutually dependant on the Enhanced Single Registry. The CCTPMIS is aiding in the delivery and efficiently managing the monthly transfers of 1.2 million households and other complementary services such as nutrition counselling for households on NICHE, while the CDMIS is facilitating the delivery of economic inclusion services to 7,500 households across five counties. Shock-responsive social protection system that is supported by the Single Registry, the Harmonized Household Registration System and the referral mechanism the joint programme has supported the population of the ESR with information of vulnerable households in 16 counties and the same data has been used in the identification of the most vulnerable households during drought response initiatives by government and partner agencies primarily in the ASAL counties. The reduced turnaround time means more lives and livelihoods have been saved and less administrative costs associated with such responses. Social Protection Capacity Development Programme the Joint programme provided technical and financial assistance to the Government for the development of a Kenya focused social protection training curriculum for social protection practitioners which has been institutionalized at the Kenya School of Government (KSG). To effectively implement the curriculum, the joint programme facilitated training, accreditation and certification of 32 (16 female and 16 male) social protection trainers, creating a critical mass of trainers which has enabled the Kenya School of Government (KSG) to roll out the training in all its 5 campuses. The training has been attracting both local and international participants and so far, 140 (78 male and 62 female) social protection practitioners have been trained on management of social protection services. In 2023 WFP and UNICEF supported the State Department for Social Protection and Senior Citizen Affairs and KSG to review the existing training curriculum for social protection as one of the key steps towards the sustainable institutionalization of the training programme at KSG. The progressive social protection human resource capacity is being felt at both policy and strategy formulation fronts as well ability to translate policy options into programmes at the national and county levels. This will go a long way in enhancing quality of services, trigger progressive programmatic expansion and coverage couple with increased financing by the Government. Strengthening the social service workforce for child protection and social protection in support of strengthening the Humanitarian Development Nexus, capacity development of child protection workforce at the forefront of drought emergencies was supported. A total of 65 children officers and 259 child protection volunteers from drought affected counties were trained with the standardized training for child protection professional and paraprofessional workforce anchored at the Kenya School of Government and the Directorate of Childrens Services (DCS) Strengthen data availability and management for child protection the joint programme supported the roll out and use of Child Protection Information Management Systems (CPIMS) by staff of Directorate of Children Services (DCS) in all the subcounties, counties and all children institutions managed by DCS. There are a total of 5,503 CPIMS users comprising of both state and nonstate actors. A number of civil society groups, especially those implementing the USAID funded programme supporting HIV impacted orphans and vulnerable children, plus 300 out of 845 charitable childrens institutions are now using CPIMS to capture case management data of children they are supporting. CPIMS is also interoperable with five other data systems including child helpline and Virugu mapper, which is a mobile phone app used at community level to report case of violence against children. Government capacity on implementation of care reform is enhanced the National Care Reform Strategy was officially launched in June 2022 by the Cabinet Minister of Public Service, Gender, Senior Citizens Affairs and Special Programmes, the Children Act 2022 has progressive provisions on child right to parental care and states responsibility to provide family and community based alternatives when a child cannot be with their biological parents. 13 counties are currently implementing the Care Reform Programme led by Directorate of Childrens Services , supported by other government agencies, civil society organisations and UNICEF. Strengthened financing for child protection A Costing model for child protection systems and services was developed and a training curriculum titled Investing in child protection systems and services hosted by KSG was developed jointly by KSG and State Department of Social Protection. In addition, a rapid funding gap analysis for seven agencies with mandate of implementing the Children Act conducted in 2022 and a report on the same launched by Chief Justice in November 2022 at the Child Justice Summit. These products are now being used to enhance the capacity of government agencies for improved budgeting as a way of influencing increased budget allocation for child protection by the National Treasury. Study and programme design for cash plus programme to address needs of vulnerable communities including children in street situations A programme design document for integrated child and social protection interventions for children and adolescents in the streets situations has been developed and endorsed by the Board of Streets Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund (SFRTF )within the State Department of Social Protection. While the document is yet to be official launched, it has been used by SFRTF to inform their budget proposal to the National Treasury for 2024/2025 financial year. The development of the design was informed by desk review and rapid assessment in May 2022 of situation of children and adolescents in street situations in six major cities in Kenya. This work is a uniquely important resource for advocating for inclusion of the most marginalised children

The proposed programme has an overall goal to ensure that people in Kenya, especially the most vulnerable groups, live in dignity, are free from poverty, hunger, violence, abuse and exploitation, to be able to exploit their full human capabilities and contribute to the national development. The original assessment of the objectives and contribution's theory of change still stands save for the current Covid-19 pandemic which has brought in positive aspects of testing the shock-responsiveness of the Social Protection system in Kenya and how to enhance the system to address varying types of shocks which will affect Kenya in future.