Macedonian Platform Against Poverty urges Government to adopt national anti-poverty strategy

The Macedonian Platform Against Poverty (MPPS) sent an open letter to the Government of North Macedonia on October 17 — the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty — demanding immediate action to curb poverty and social exclusion.

In its appeal, the MPPS urged the government to adopt a comprehensive national strategy against poverty modelled on the European strategy, which aims to eliminate poverty by 2050. "We repeat that reducing poverty is a political choice and directly depends on designing and implementing appropriate, comprehensive and dignified policies that do not treat poverty as an accident or personal failure, but as a systemic problem that can and must be solved," the platform said.

Six priority demands

The MPPS listed six concrete measures it says should be enacted as a matter of urgency:

• Immediate implementation of the European Child Guarantee, a universal child allowance and measures to prevent child poverty;
• Inclusion of housing in social policy, recognising housing as a human right, preventing homelessness, ensuring affordable housing for young people and protecting citizens from excessive market prices and illegal practices by private actors;
• Expansion of services for vulnerable groups, including investments to increase access to kindergartens, social services for children with disabilities and care services for older persons;
• Reduction of in-work poverty through consistent enforcement of labour protections and oversight of workers' rights;
• Adoption of policies to reduce out-of-pocket payments in health care;
• Measures to address poverty and social exclusion among older people via flexible pension pathways, pension adequacy, support for active ageing and effective access to high-quality care services and targeted social inclusion interventions.

The platform highlighted recent statistics to underline the scale of the problem: nearly 22 percent of citizens live below the poverty line, 29.5 percent of children experience poverty, and 38 percent of children face multidimensional poverty that endangers health, learning, safety and development. Only 19 percent of households with children receive child and family benefits, compared with 88 percent in the European Union.

MPPS called on the government to treat poverty as a structural policy issue rather than an individual failing, and to move quickly to adopt and implement the measures it outlined.

Photo: Printskrin