Second Social Services Improvement Project

active

The proposed Project will continue strengthening and expanding the reforms set within the Government agenda to promote equitable access to social services and early childhood education and care (ECEC) services as a way to promote social inclusion and increase labor force participation. The proposed Project would cover two main areas of improving access to quality social services and ECEC services. This combined approach of investments in social services and ECEC services has the capacity to enhance integration and inclusion of the vulnerable population, increase their human capital investments to support them reaching their potential, and improve their labor market outcomes. With respect to social services, the proposed Project would support (i) the expansion of coverage of non-residential services (with a particular focus on in-home care for the elderly); (ii) improvements in the quality of services through strengthening networks of providers, regulations, supporting municipalities and enhancing monitoring; and (iii) the implementation of the integrated management information system and case management system to provide a more human-centric wholistic approach to social services. Regarding ECEC, the Project would (i) support the expansion of the supply of preschool, mostly by repurposing excess classrooms within the primary school network; (ii) consolidate the improvements in the quality of preschool education made under SSIP by establishing centers of excellence, peer-to-peer learning, strengthening the professional development of preschool teachers and targeted learning initiatives, especially those that support school readiness in domains such as early literacy and numeracy; and (iii) promote inclusion of marginalized children by expanding linkages between different services and social workers and improving parenting practices.The proposed Project contributes directly to the goals of the current Country Partnership Framework (CPF), and those that are emerging for the forthcoming CPF, based on the updated Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD). The CPF promotes “investing in people” as a key factor in sustaining inclusive growth over the long term. The proposed Project directly contributes to this goal, which is set out in Focus Area Two - Inclusive Growth: Expand Skills and Opportunities for the Most Vulnerable, through its investments in expanding access to ECEC, social services and promoting the inclusion of marginalized groups. The importance of strengthening human capital development for all is reinforced through the analysis that is emerging in the 2023 SCD, which is an update to the 2018 SCD. The draft SCD finds that the labor force needed for stronger economic growth is constrained by aging population, coupled with outmigration and skills mismatch.