Resource information
This summary report is the culmination
of a comprehensive, more than a year-long, collaboration
between the World Bank, Fiji Department of Social Welfare
(DSW), Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics (FIBOS) and AusAID.
It reflects various activities undertaken under the work
program that was agreed upon with the Government of Fiji
(GOF), with financial support provided by AusAID under the
Externally Funded Output (EFO) agreement with the World
Bank. The objective of this report is to present the key
findings and issues that emerged from the analysis, as well
as potential options for policy changes. The recommendations
are made with a view of being very concrete, and also with
understanding that while some of them could be implemented
quickly, others should be considered for medium to long
term. This summary report intentionally omits some technical
details, since those are available in the accompanying
background papers on various issues. The remainder of the
report is structured as follows. Section two presents the
profile of poverty and vulnerability in Fiji. It is intended
to provide a context for the discussion of the social
protection system. Section three presents a brief overview
of the current social protection system in Fiji. Section
four presents the key design features of Family Assistance
Program (FAP) and discusses the program's strengths and
challenges by looking at the range of the performance
indicators. The discussion in this section reflects the
findings emerging from the quantitative and qualitative
analysis of the FAP. Section five considers some of the
policy options for the design of the SP system moving
forward. In a way, it provides some 'big picture'
ideas and also highlights how much some of the changes could
cost from a budget perspective. It also discusses issues
related to the development of the new targeting approaches.
Section six highlights some of the key findings and
recommendations that emerged from the analysis of various
operational aspects of the SP system. The activity matrix in
the annex presents the suggested work program activities
that will need to be implemented in the next couple of years
to ensure progress with enhancing the SP system in Fiji.
