Learning Exchange Cambodia- Nepal on Social Protection

In October 2022, a 5-day Workshop of Learning and Exchange visit took place between the CSO and Trade Unions from Cambodia, facilitated by Oxfam Cambodia, and Nepal, facilitated by WSM.
The Learning and Exchange served multiple purposes, learning from the work on similar goals in different contexts:
- Extract significant and relevant learning regarding successes and failures of the project intervention and of CSO and Trade Union engagement in the project so far,
- Provide a venue for mutual learning and capacity strengthening,
- Capitalise participants’ experiences into lessons learned as basis for a learning report.
- Identify areas for improvement based on the lessons learned and propose ways forward to the last phase of the project implementation.

In this video, one person from trade union umbrella organisation ITUC-NAC and one from Oxfam Nepal are interviewed about the river of life of the INSP!R network in Nepal:
GOPAL GHIMIRE, programme Manager from ITUC-NAC.
PRAKASH KAFLE from Oxfam Nepal, focusing among others on shock-responsive social protection
Interview directed and edited by BRUNO DECEUKELIER, WSM Asia Coordinator

Gathered documents and key moments written on pieces of paper were put in a chronological order on the wall. Outside of the river, at the top, the years were shown and here were also put policies and relevant context elements like COVID-19 or elections. At the bottom, the right holders and public are represented by news clippings talking about for instance enrolment and coverage.
Still to better understand what had happened, participants grouped the different events, creating four main levels or “streams” that interconnect frequently. These categories were:
A. Advocacy
B. Structuring of the Network
C. Capacity strengthening
D. Local level and awareness raising

The first part still focused on before the project, where we acknowledge the individual members had already worked on various levels and achieved various elements regarding SP, dating back to the first schemes outside of public servants, like the old age allowance which initially provided for the first time scheme with universal coverage of 100 NPR/month to elderly. Worth mentioning here are the unity build among trade unions and its umbrella organisations of ITUC-NAC gathering the three largest trade unions and JTUCC. Their combined lobbying led to the passing of the contributory social security act and was followed, also with WSM support, From the side of CSOs and NGOs, this was mirrored with the establishment of SPCSN uniting 19 members. Oxfam has gathered many years of experience on shock responsive social protection, both at global and Nepali level. Save the Children focused on child sensitive social protection and also brought on certain policy changes.

While the SPF&PFM project started officially in 2019, some members continued or build on their local level representation to raise awareness or facilitate enrolment of their members in schemes. Some also build capacities of local level decision makers, which contributed to better rapport to enrol their members.

The European Commission (DG INTPA) is funding a global action that supports governments to expand national social protection coverage through systems-strengthening, in particular through technical support, explorative research and capacity development on Public Finance Management (PFM) towards more effective, evidence-based and inclusive budgeting processes for sustainable financing of more inclusive social protection systems in 8 countries.
This four-year global action is implemented from March 2020 to May 2023, by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF in countries committed to strengthening their social protection systems. In addition, the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors (GCSPF), a global civil society network - has been contracted as co-implementor in 4 countries - Cambodia, Nepal, Senegal and Uganda - to facilitate the effective and structural participation of civil society, in the development, implementation and monitoring of social protection policies. More concretely, the role of the GCSPF is to strengthen national civil society organizations and trade unions, their capacities and structures, amplifying the voices and concerns of communities and beneficiaries to engage meaningfully and effectively in discussions with governments and other relevant stakeholders on social protection design and financing as well as on monitoring and social accountability. Forging cooperation between a variety of civil society actors at the national level is crucial in the intervention.