SOCIAL SECTOR INVESTMENT PROGRAMME
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SUSTAINING GROWTH, SECURING PROSPERITY
CHAPTER 3: NATIONAL SOCIAL SITUATION
• Develop and build citizens through education
and training programmes;
• Restructure social safety net programmes;
• Modernise social services delivery systems;
and
• Encourage and nurture self-reliant and
sustainable communities.
Towards this end the core social sector
Ministry, the Ministry of the People and Social
Development (MPSD), is mandated to address
the social challenges of poverty, social inequality
and social exclusion. Particular emphasis has
been placed on developing and executing
programmes and services that protect and
assist vulnerable and marginalised groups in
society, which include such as women, children,
persons with disabilities, the elderly, the poor/
indigent, the socially displaced, ex-prisoners,
deportees and persons living with HIV/AIDS.
Guided by the tenets ‘Helping, Empowering
and Transforming Lives’, the MPSD, along with
other key social sector ministries, seeks to
empower its clientele through rehabilitative
and skill enhancement initiatives. The MPSD is
also responsible for developing, coordinating,
monitoring and evaluating social sector policies
and programmes to ensure sustainability,
cultural relevance, and economic viability.
i. Poverty Reduction and an Efficient Social
Services Delivery System
Fiscal 2013 ushered in an amalgam of initiatives
directed at poverty mitigation and vulnerability
moderation:
A. Poverty Reduction Programme (PRP)
In 2013 the Ministry of the People and Social
Development took a policy decision to divide
the Poverty Reduction Programme into two core
units to facilitate improved delivery of services
and greater focus on poverty research and policy
development. The two new units are: the Poverty
Reduction and Eradication Research and Policy
Unit and the National Poverty Eradication and
Programmes Co-ordinating Unit and.
The functions of the Units are summarised as
follows:
The Poverty Reduction and Eradication
Research and Policy Unit (PRERPU)
• To develop and manage the implementation
of a relevant poverty reduction strategy for
Trinidad and Tobago;
• To
provide
current
data/information
on poverty at national, municipal and
community levels that is accessible to all
stakeholders through on-going research
activities;
• To facilitate the continuous exchange of
information on poverty reduction strategies/
programmes between national, regional and
international agencies for comparability and
developing best practices; and
• To be the national repository for poverty
information from all Government and
quasi-governmental
organisations
with
programmes which target the reduction of
poverty.
The National Poverty Reduction and
Eradication Programmes Coordinating Unit
(NPREPCU)
• To foster an integrated approach to
poverty reduction, through stakeholder
partnerships/collaboration
through
the
Regional Social and Human Development
Councils (RSHDCs);
• To engage civil society networks as strategic
partners for poverty reduction in T&T; and
• To deliver key poverty eradication projects
that would address poverty and vulnerability
sustainability at individual and community
levels, such projects to include the Micro
Enterprise and Training Grant (MEG), The
Micro Enterprise Loan Facility (MEL), Multi-
purpose Community Based Telecentres and
the Regional Micro Project Fund(RMPF).
