RECOMMENDATIONS The following recommendations are made in view of the foregoing discussions. 1. There is a need to raise the awareness and participatory levels of social protection in the country. The Ministries of Information and Social Orientation should be saddled with this responsibility. 2. Given the import of social protection, the Federal Government needs to increase the coverage which currently stands at about 1.00%. 3. There is a need to scale up funding for social protection programmes. This can be done through budgetary increase and, or donor assistance. 4. The government needs to build capacity for Ministry staff in the public sector who are expected to efficiently carry out the responsibilities and processes associated with social protection. 5. To facilitate 1-4 above, transparency and accountability must be entrenched in the programmes- in the aspects of selection of beneficiaries, among others. 44