CRC/C/MDG/3-4 - Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

CRC/C/MDG/3-4
out, access to health care by the poorest and most vulnerable population sectors,
generalizing nutrition activities to benefit children under age five and a rapid, systematic
response to natural disasters through highly labour-intensive works.
461. For the last few years, social welfare programme expenditures have made up, on
average, 7 per cent of public expenditures. 60 per cent of the financing for social welfare
comes from the public investment budget, financed by external sources and only 1 per cent
from the regular budget. In 2003, 18 international partners actively maintained social
welfare programs. Money spent to fight malnutrition made up the largest portion of social
welfare expenditures between 2000 and 2003.
462. Programmes implemented to target the poorest and most vulnerable, with a view to
reducing their social exclusion and promoting their access to basic services, include:
• Regarding education: a safety net for helping primary-school pupils and their
families (subsidies for registration fees, subsidies for school kits for poor families
and school meal programmes);
• Regarding health: social equity funds operating at basic health-care facilities (costrecovery
exemption for those with the fewest resources), free or subsidized
treatment for some diseases (tuberculosis, leprosy, plague, schistosomiasis, malaria
in areas of prevalence, HIV/AIDS), child-immunization programmes, subsidies for
treated mosquito nets;
• Regarding nutrition: school nutrition, community nutrition, intensive nutritional
recovery;
• Regarding labour-intensive public works (improving urban infrastructure and
sanitation, and supplying water): employment providing a minimum wage plus
benefits in kind.
463. Other programmes have been deployed to fight the social exclusion of children and
young people who are not in school or have left school early. A psycho-social counselling
programme for orphans and vulnerable children, supported principally by the Global Fund
to Fight AIDS, started up in 2004. Its objective is to support the management of OVCs by
providing psycho-social and educational support, offering socioeconomic support to
families through income-generating activities (IGAs) and regularizing the legal status of
children and families.
464. The LEMIZO initiative, or the social reintegration of the homeless, has been
implemented by the MHFPSW. This activity consists of placing homeless and unemployed
families and individuals from cities in community-based villages (such as Andranofeno,
Andranovelona, Mandazaka, and others) to accomplish the goal of social reintegration.
465. A list of social welfare programmes for children can be found in annex V.
VII. Education, leisure and cultural activities
A. Education, including vocational training and guidance
466. Commitment 3 of the MAP, entitled Educational Transformation, outlines the most
important objectives pertaining to education: the establishment of an “educational system
that complies with world‐class quality and effectiveness standards, that stimulates creativity
and helps students make their dreams come true, and that provides Madagascar with the
human resources needed to become a competitive nation and a successful player in the
world economy.”
76 GE.10-42176 (EXT)