Authorities in Paraguay stress importance of a sustainable social protection system with universal coverage

Panalists at the International Seminar on Social Protection & Public Finances in Paraguay.

“Recent years’ repeated crises – energy, environmental, health, economic – have once again demonstrated the need for strong social protection systems that protect all people, especially the most vulnerable, who have become even more vulnerable during and after these crises. But they have also demonstrated the need and the challenges that exist in designing and financing social protection programmes. In Paraguay, only 25 per cent of people are covered by some kind of social protection programme,” said Matteo Sirtori, Head of Cooperation of the European Union Delegation in Paraguay, during the opening of the International Seminar on Social Protection and Public Finances (29 March).

The seminar was organized under the SP&PFM country project, with the support of the Delegation of the European Union in Paraguay and in collaboration with the Technical Unit of the Social Cabinet and the General Directorate of Budget of the Ministry of Finance. Teodora Recaide, the Director General of Budget, stressed that “The budget is the most important tool and must reach citizens of the country’s furthest corner.”

Guillermo Montt, ILO Social Protection Specialist for the Southern Cone of Latin America, moderated the seminar, with featured presentations by Carlos Galián, ILO Technical Officer in Social Protection Financing, on “Financing Social Protection: The Importance of Public Finances”, and Mónica Rubio, UNICEF Regional Social Policy Advisor and former Minister of Development and Social Inclusion of Peru, who spoke on “Child-sensitive Social Protection”. 

The event was also attended by officials from the Technical Unit of the Social Cabinet, the General Directorate of Budget of the Ministry of Finance and other ministries and government agencies involved in Paraguay’s social protection system, Vamos!