Activists ask government to adopt strategy to attain MDG

Activists have asked the government to adopt Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (SAGE) programme as one of the mechanisms to achieve the Millennium Development Goal on poverty eradication.
Under their umbrella body, the Africa Platform on Social Protection (APSP), they resolved to engage in post-Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of 2015 process to address the gaps realised in the current interventions towards the implementation of the programme like cash transfers.

Speaking at the delegates’ conference in Kampala, Ms Lillian Keene Mugerwa, the chairperson of APSP, said the platform has resolved to come up with strategies and find interventions to undertake after 2015.
The APSP is a network of individuals and organisations that work to promote and strengthen the social contract between states and citizens to shape social protection programmes and practices in Africa.

“Government needs to allocate more resources towards social protection for this is the only way to sustain peoples’ access to government programmes like health, education considering the country’s poverty levels,” said Ms Mugerwa, also the executive director of Platform for Labour Action, a local advocacy body.

State Minister in charge of Elderly and Disability, Mr Sulaiman Madada, warned politicians to desist from politicking the social protection programme saying the move seeks stimulate local economic activities to complement development.

He said the direct income transfers to the elderly in the rural areas are necessary in bringing the vulnerable persons into the development process.

The minister appealed to civil society actors to join government in implementing the policy.

ekasozi@ug.nationmedia.com