In 2005 the Government of Zambia developed a draft Social Protection Strategy (SPS) to guide and coordinate social protection interventions targeted at the poor. Two Technical Working Groups (TWG) were set up – the Social Welfare Technical Working Group (SWTWG) for incapacitated households, and the Low Capacity Household Technical Working Group (LCHTWG) for low capacity households - to inform the Social Protection Sector Advisory Group and feed into the development of ongoing social protection policy in the country. Whilst the Social Welfare TWG has developed a policy and roadmap for addressing the needs of incapacitated households, the Low Capacity Household TWG formed more recently and is currently less clear about the future direction and objectives of programmes for households who are poor but have some capacity to build sustainable livelihoods.   

This paper aims to support the recent Ministry of Community Development and Social services (MCDSS) paper “Evaluation Study on Appropriate Models of Livelihood Strategies for Social protection in Zambia” and support the Low Capacity Household TWG to develop greater policy clarity on i) who low capacity households are ii) their needs iii) objectives of social protection for them and iv) ideas about appropriate instruments.