AIAE makes case for Social Security

As a way of contributing its quota to the economic advancement of the country, the African Institute for Applied Economics (AIAE) has urged the government and other stakeholders to work towards ensuring an all inclusive and sustainable social security system in the country. This submission was made at  the last Enugu forum held on 15th October, 2009 last year. 

Enugu Forum is a civic platform devoted to debating, proposing and using evidence-based analytic perspectives to inform and influence effective and credible public policies. The Forum connects key stakeholders from across government, private sector and civil society through policy seminars, roundtables, workshops and conferences. The purpose is to engender a shared stakeholder understanding of alternative policy options from the perspective of hard evidence rooted in scientific analysis.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the seminar which focused on Inclusive and Sustainable Social Security in Nigeria, it was agreed that social security systems were justified by the empirical failure of economic policies and development paradigms which assume, what it called, automatic trickle-down effects.

The communiqué signed by Professor Eric Eboh, the Executive Director of the Institute said further that social security system in Nigeria was bedevilled with institutional weaknesses, paucity of data, poor planning, unstable funding and maladministration, adding that the  sustainability of social security programmes in Nigeria is hindered by frequent policy changes, lack of political will and poor succession of strategies.

It added that recent institutional and policy reforms in social security, particularly in pensions and health insurance, are commendable and many social assistance schemes that target the vulnerable segments of society such as the aged, sick, unemployed, homeless, disabled and poor often do not inspire public confidence because of low accountability and transparency.            The body recommended that more research should be done to investigate and advice on the financing requirements, cost-sharing models and suitable delivery channels for different target groups as well as the potential socio-economic impact of social security.