After a year and a half: the bill to establish the Authority to Fight Poverty was approved for first reading

The bill to establish the Authority to Fight Poverty was approved by the Labor and Welfare Committee for the first reading, a year and a half after it was placed on the Knesset’s table. According to the proposed law, the authority will have the authority to lead and coordinate governmental, inter-ministerial and inter-sectoral policies to eradicate poverty and set goals for its reduction, and it will set standards for living with dignity.

Despite the criticism of associations and professionals, the proposal includes a clause stating that the establishment of the Authority will lead to the abolition of the Council for Food Security, an independent council that advises the government in setting policies to reduce food insecurity – an issue related to the fight against poverty, but does not overlap with it, and deals with other issues related to food security such as security food, dealing with difficulties in growing and producing food resulting from disasters and the climate crisis and more.

In the forum for the fight against poverty, they opposed the cancellation of the Council for Food Security, and suggested that it be transferred under the Prime Minister’s Office and that it work in cooperation with the Authority. The forum also commented that the bill lacks definitions for the elements that the plan should address, such as social security, education, health including mental health, employment, housing, welfare and the exercise of rights.

Two of the law’s proponents, MK Aida Toma-Sleiman (Hadash-Ta’al) and Naama Lazimi (Labor) claimed that it had been promised in previous committees to remove the clause abolishing the council. The chairman of the committee, MK Israel Eichler, and CEO The Ministry of Social Affairs, Yanon Aharoni, pledged that this would change in the discussions for the next readings.

During the preparatory discussions, sections of direct financial support, supervision and operation of associations were added to the proposal, which provoked criticism in the committee. “We need to be careful about transferring the state’s responsibility in the field of the fight against poverty to non-profit organizations,” argued attorney Becky Cohen-Kesht from the Forum for the Fight against Poverty. “Privatizing significant services requires fundamental policy decisions.”

MK Lazimi also resented the clause: “The goal of the law was to reduce privatization, not to intensify it.”

Eichler explained: “I didn’t want there to be an authority that was only bureaucratic and theoretical and only ‘blah blah blah’, I wanted the authority to be able to monitor and operate associations and authorities if necessary. You wanted an authority that would only chart a path, I want an authority that also operates.”

Lazimi replied: “I don’t want the authority to operate associations, I want a functioning ministry of welfare. The authority should allow the state to carry out its role in eradicating poverty, not be an executive contractor of associations. This is privatization of the authority of the ministry of welfare.”

Attorney and Attorney Efrat Rotem from the Association of Attorneys added: “I am not calm about the clauses that allow support to be provided. There are public systems, the solution to the fact that they don’t work is to budget them and make them work, not bypass them.”

The representative of the Ministry of Finance clarified that the authority will be budgeted from the budget of the Ministry of Welfare, and any budgetary expansion for it will require a ‘balancing action’. Following the allegations, MK Lazimi and MK Toma-Soliman abstained from voting to approve the law for the first reading. The law passed the committee’s approval without opposition.

“After a long period in which we only see price increases, for a measure that only tortures people during the war, we are finally celebrating the fact that there is a macro-level engagement in the field of poverty in the Knesset,” said Cohen-Kesht after the debate. “We in the forum have been talking about the need for an authority to fight poverty for years. However, we are very concerned that the establishment of the authority will come at the expense of the Food Security Council. They must not abolish the Food Security Council by saying that the authority will also deal with this issue. The authority needs to stand up and act at the overall policy level, and leave specific plans and action to the professional bodies.”