Saint Lucia is taking steps to better develop standards for the protection of its citizenry, with special focus on the welfare and needs of the vulnerable persons in the community.
In collaboration with United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP), the country also seeks to improve the shock responsiveness of its social systems.
Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in wide social displacement, the Ministry of Equity as government’s lead implementing agency for social assistance, with the input from stakeholders, have crafted procedures to be used by relevant institutions in the delivery of social protection services to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in particular, in the aftermath of disasters or shocks.
“What we are doing here is to review protocols that we have developed that speaks to clear roles and responsibilities, in terms of response,” said Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Equity, Velda Joseph.
“We have a role for NEMO … and we have agencies, which are all part of that system,” she added.
Joseph said the project is also tasked with identifying what those roles are and how to implement them, “so that …when you have that response it is already established. We have rehearsed it, we have practiced it and we can run seamlessly with it.”
According to a ministry spokesperson, rapid mobilization is critical for effective response post exogenous shocks and as such, the Ministry of Equity is examining a multiplicity of options for financing disaster risk response.
“We want to ensure that we can look at the modalities, look at the options, to see what is feasible for Saint Lucia and put things in place , so that once we trigger and we activate we are able to access the resources that is required to support the response, ” Joseph explained.
The World Food Programme has remained a consistent partner with the Ministry of Equity on several matters including the area of disaster risk financing.
Project Policy Officer and Country Representative, Lelia Ramjeawan said shock responsive protection is better administered when key government agencies such as, the Ministry of Equity, NEMO, Ministry of Budget and Finance all operate in unison.
“Now that we are looking at social responsive shock protection there is need to look at bringing these institutions together and (see) how we collaborate, coordinate and identify roles and responsibilities,” she explained. “Because among these different line ministries, you would find that there are efforts to link these disaster risk management (agencies) and the social sector would be difficult and pose problems.”
The Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment is well underway in conducting a review of Saint Lucia’s social protection system, and existing mechanisms can be made more robust in order to adapt and provide critical support in a timely manner once a shock occurs.