New progress in Paraguay in the Social Policy sector

EUROsociAL+ has made more progress in its actions in the area of social policy currently underway in Paraguay. The first action (a social protection system) seeks to articulate the strategies for intervention by the entire public sector from the viewpoint of civic rights and life-cycle. The EUROsociAL+ programme mobilised international experts, including the former French Minister of Social Affairs, Marisol Touraine, Clarisa Hardy, from Chile, and Ana Isabel Garcia, from Costa Rica, to contribute to completing the final stage of the process. The result was the approval by the Social Cabinet of the document outlining the main features, content, recipients and priorities of a new system of social protection for Paraguay: “The opportunity to implement a system of social protection. The support from EUROsociAL+ will now continue in the form of a transition team until the system has been completely defined (budget, institutional architecture, etc.). It should be noted that this support has also served to set up the framework that will permit the European Union to provide some €48 million in budgetary aid.

Another action, addressed to the Ministry of Women and the Inter-Organisational Care Policy Driving Group, aims to provide support for drawing up a proposal for a public care policy. The EUROsociAL+ programme is taking part in the process through the renowned Uruguayan expert, Karina Batthyani. During the programme’s follow-up mission to Asunción in April, discussions centred around diagnosing the situation and identifying the target populations for the policy, with a view to defining a baseline for providing quality care services.

At the same time, another aim of the follow-up mission was an action to define a geo-referenced monitoring and assessment system for the Tenonderãprogramme. In this, the Uruguayan Ministry of Social Development (MIDES) National Directorate for Assessment and Monitoring provided support to the Paraguayan Secretariat of Social Action (SAS). The work focused on classifying the housing that would benefit from the programme by district. This also led to a review of a series of monitoring tools that measure the results of the programme and collect the required information.