About that today at the briefing in the Ministry, is devoted to new approaches in the provision of social assistance, Deputy MLSP RK of population of Kazakhstan Svetlana Zhakupova.

At the beginning of her speech, she recalled that in the framework of the 84 step of the Plan - 100 concrete steps on implementation of five institutional reforms were developed by the Law of Kazakhstan "On amendments and additions to some legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on issues of social protection of the population", which was signed by the President on 29 October 2015.  

The law provides for the introduction from 1 January 2018 the new order of rendering of targeted social assistance (hereinafter - TSA) to families with incomes below 50% of the subsistence minimum (currently 40%) on each member of the family, with the condition of mandatory participation of able-bodied family members in active measures to promote employment, which will be granted in replacement of existing:

- special state allowances (hereinafter - SSA) large families;

- state child allowances till 18 years for low-income families;

- targeted social assistance to low-income households.

The new TSA will be classified into 2 types: unconditional and conditional cash assistance.

Unconditional cash assistance will be provided to those families in which no able-bodied members (e.g., families of disabled or elderly pensioners), or families of able-bodied members of which for objective reasons are unable to participate in measures promoting employment (for example, a single mother with children of preschool age). For these families, mandatory participation in employment measures for benefits is not required.

Conditional cash assistance will be given to families, having in its composition at least one able-bodied member, subject to the conclusion the social contract and mandatory participation of all able-bodied family members in employment promotion measures.

By signing the social contract, the parties undertake mutual obligations: social services are taking measures to promote the employment and pay benefits, and able-bodied family members participate in good faith in the employment measures.

A person is not just provided by financial assistance, helping him to find a job, sent on various courses of retraining and improvement of qualification. Thus, promoting the capacity of families to exit poverty.

The Vice-Minister also noted that in 2014 new approaches to social assistance have been approved in Akmola, East Kazakhstan and Zhambyl regions where it was implemented the pilot project "Orleu", providing conditional cash assistance to persons who have signed the social contract. From 1 July 2015 similar regional pilot projects additionally launched in 38 districts and cities at the expense of local budgets. So, in 2015, the project "Orleu" participated 20,2 thousand persons.

"In 2016, the project "Orleu" was attended by 38.8 thousand people. The project implementation contributed to the increase of per capita income of its participants by more than 2 times; the involvement of the order of 90.5% of the working participants in measures to promote employment; to reduce the recipients of targeted social assistance in pilot regions of 24.7%," said Svetlana Zhakupova.

For further implementation of the project in 2017, the national budget provided 7.1 billion. This year the pilot project "Orleu" is planned to involve about 150 thousand low-income citizens from all districts and cities of the country.