Minister backs collaboration with partners for greater inclusion

Angolan minister of Social Action Family and Promotion of Women (MASFAMU), Ana Paula do Sacramento Neto, Tuesday in Lubango, southern Huila Province, called for a better alignment and permanent collaboration among various sectors and partners to ensure more inclusion and social protection of vulnerable people.

The minister was addressing an opening ceremony of the 5th Ordinary Consultative Council of MASFAMU held in Lubango for two days.

Delivering her speech delivered in the two-day event, under the slogan “Social Action, a Commitment from All”, the minister mentioned the children, youths, women, the people with disabilities, the elderly and minority communities as being part of the target group.

Ana Paula do Sacramento Neto said that the policies, programmes and actions of social inclusion currently conceived give guarantees that they are on the right track, calling for more work on the basis of a robust alignment with the sectors and partners.

She said that the council is the “opportune moment” to discuss and study the bottlenecks observed during the implementation and execution of the various programmes and actions aimed at reducing the levels of poverty, discrimination, social exclusion and protection of the most vulnerable populations.

Ana Paula do Sacramento Neto reinforced that it is up to the sector to conceive, propose, promote and execute the social policy regarding people and population in vulnerable situation, as well as to promote the development of the communities, including the actions to fight poverty and to defend the family welfare.

“Although our tasks are distributed among the different areas, we are called upon to work in an articulated manner, based on the spirit of mutual help and institutional solidarity, because only in this way will it be possible to achieve the recommended objectives”, she added.

In turn, the governor of Huíla, Nuno Mahapi, noted that the focus is on the expansion of knowledge about vulnerability, with a view to improving the Social Protection System, with primacy for the municipal level.

He stressed that in order to achieve this, social protection is fundamental to mitigate people’s vulnerability, which is why the province has conducted ongoing studies with various social actors on vulnerability.

The 5th Ordinary Consultative Council brings to analysis and discussion the approach on the organisation and functioning of the Ministry, its programmes and projects.

It also addresses topics such as the strengthening of monitoring methodologies and data processing, adjustment of the strategy to achieve the established goals and identification of the challenges of the sector, as well as the proposal of the sector’s Legislative package.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)