Mission Wrap-Up Meeting Held
A wrap-up meeting for the Joint Mid-Term Review Mission for NSNP and Imple-mentation Support Mission for Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) took place at the NSSF Building in Nairobi on 18 March 2016.
From L: World Bank’s NSNP Task Team Leader Cornelia Tesliuc, Secretary, Social Development, Lydia Muriuki, Head, Social Protection Secretariat Cecilia
Mbaka and Kellen Karanu, during the JRIS wrap–up meeting at the NSSF Building in Nairobi on 18 March 2016
The meeting was organized to give the team involved in the Mission an opportunity to review, discuss and confirm the key actions agreed upon during the February 2016 JRIS Mission. The opportunity was also used to discuss the outstanding actions from the June 2015 JRIS Mission’s action plan.
Speaking at the meeting, World Bank’s NSNP Task Team Leader Cornelia Tesliuc noted that 47 % of the funds for NSNP implementation have so far been disbursed, indicating that progress has been made in implementing the programme. She however observed that despite this progress, some challenges in key areas of implementation like payment delays still remained to be addressed.
Ms. Teslius listed the prevailing areas of challenges in NSNP implementation including, delayed payments, targeting compliance (adherence to operational manual procedure), low awareness among beneficiaries in relation to their rights, consolidation strategy (more so the harmonization of targeting tool and sustainability of programmes beyond 2017).
Contracts management was also raised as an area of challenge. There was mutual agreement by both the government side and development partners on the importance of extending support to the programme beyond 2017 and in this regard, it was noted that development partners involved in NSNP had already held discussions with Treasury on this issue and Treasury had expressed willingness to support the proposed extension. As a follow up to this, the government side committed to prepare and send a formal letter, an elaborate imple-mentation plan and areas for support to the World Bank and DFID before June this year for further action.
The wrap-up meeting was chaired by the Secretary, Social Development, Lydia Muriuki representing the Secretary for Administration Ambassador Binsai Chepsongol.
Participants were drawn from the various relevant departments in the Ministry of Labour and EastAfrican Affairs, the National Drought Management Authority, the National Registry and repre-sentatives from development partner’s institutions including the World Bank, UNICEF, World Food Program and DFID.
The JRIS Mission took place between 12 and 26 February 2016.