Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

Social protection is an important dimension in the reduction of poverty and multidimensional

deprivation. It is an approach towards thinking about the processes, policies

and interventions which respond to the economic, social, political and security risks and

constraints poor and vulnerable people face, and which will make them less insecure and

less poor, and more able to participate in economic growth. More narrowly, it describes a

set of policies that governments can pursue in order to provide protection both to the

‘active poor’, enabling them to participate more productively in economic activity, and to

the less active poor, with considerable benefits for society as a whole. Such policies can

help to fulfil states’ obligations to ensure basic rights for all individuals. Social protection

policies are always part of a broader set of policies – on macroeconomic stability,

enterprise and employment development, health, and education – aimed at reducing risk

and vulnerability and encouraging pro-poor growth.

A social protection approach can make a strong contribution, alongside other approaches,

both towards preventing the slide into poverty and assisting with recovery, and towards the

long-term reduction of poverty and multi-dimensional deprivation, as one way for

chronically poor people or their children to escape poverty. It can also contribute to the

achievement of human rights if states progressively take on as objectives of social

protection the obligation of ensuring that citizens have an adequate standard of living,

backed up by social security in case of loss of livelihood through disability, sickness, old

age or other causes.

This paper argues that well designed social protection can have a positive rather than a

restraining impact on economic growth (and therefore on the first MDG) and can help to

shape the pattern of economic growth in favour of the poor, such that the poor benefit at

least as much as, if not more than, the average (reflecting on the inequality indicator for

the first MDG). It states that social protection for the less active poor can be affordable

even in low-income countries, and that it has significant positive economic externalities.

The paper also argues that the difficulties for poor people in recovering from shocks purely

or largely through their own efforts, especially when shocks are multiple or sequenced,

should not be underestimated: recovery takes longer for the poor and usually benefits from

external help, whether from public policy or private support. Informal protection is

important and, where it is equitable in its burdens, should be facilitated.

The paper asks what is meant by social protection, clarifying its meaning, purpose and

scope within DFID’s approach to poverty reduction and programmes (Section 2). The

primary purpose of social protection has three parts:

to prevent, mitigate and enhance the ability to cope with and recover from the major

hazards faced by all poor people;

to contribute to chronically poor people’s ability to emerge from poverty, deprivation

and insecurity, and to challenge the oppressive socio-economic relationships which

could be keeping them poor, by increasing livelihood security and linking such

increases to the promotion of enhanced livelihoods; and

to enable the less active poor to live a dignified life with an adequate standard of

living, such that poverty is not passed from one generation to the next.

Social protection also supports economic growth, social integration and political stability,

human development, and human rights objectives.

The scope of this paper is broad, covering safety nets, social assistance and social

insurance, and mutual and informal risk management. The mechanisms range from pure

transfers to those without access to assets, including their own labour and social networks,

through transfers that require a reciprocal action from those able to provide it (e.g. labour

contributions or attendance at a public service), through to mutual insurance whereby the

entire cost of protection is met by the beneficiary.

Social protection should enable recovery from shocks; however, the effort required to help

poor people recover has often been underestimated, and recovery is therefore limited. In

order to enable more complete recovery, it is necessary (i) to use the development of a

social protection system to extend and systematise humanitarian approaches to recovery;

and (ii) to link protection with livelihood promotion, such that assets are safely

accumulated over time and vulnerability is reduced. These represent major challenges for

social protection approaches.

The developmental importance of social protection lies in its ability to interrupt the high

levels of risk and vulnerability which not only lead to people becoming poor, but also

contribute substantially to chronic poverty. This enables poor people to participate in and

contribute to economic growth (Section 3). Effective social protection can prevent the

negative consequences of uninsured risks: investment in liquid assets with lower returns

than other investments have; the accumulation of burdens of care for society’s carers,

usually women, the elderly and older children; irreversible losses of human capital through

malnutrition, preventable death, disability and illness.

A disaggregated analysis of vulnerability is necessary in an understanding of its varied

sources and degrees, with the end that an appropriate approach to dealing with risk and

vulnerability can be developed, and a range and combination of social protection policies

can be designed. Social protection can then relieve some of the market failures that

prevent or slow economic growth and prevent poor people from taking advantage of the

opportunities growth provides. It can also make strong contributions to the protection and

building of the human, financial, natural and physical assets of poor people which enable

them to grow out of poverty.

There is a battery of policy instruments that governments can use to advance the

protection available to the poor – not only in the contributions governments can make

directly to reducing risk and vulnerability, but also in regulation that should facilitate private

and informal social protection (Section 4). This paper argues that it is combinations of

instruments that will make a significant difference and offers a set of criteria by which

individual instruments can be judged in a particular vulnerability context. In most lowincome

countries, some combination of strengthened safety nets, conditional transfers to

support human capital development, and basic social assistance measures will be the

most effective, given the poverty reduction objectives of government policies and donor

support. Countries develop unique social protection ‘trajectories’ over time, reflecting the

risk and vulnerability context and socio-political and economic history.

Targeting is often a less than ideal approach to providing protection: it is difficult to avoid

wrongful exclusion and inclusion, it is expensive and administratively difficult to do well,

and it reduces social solidarity. However, decision-makers will continue to insist on it,

largely on cost grounds. In this situation, the best targeting is the lightest – targeting can

be carried out where there are simple categories which make sense (age, location, widely

recognised degree of exclusion), within which provision ideally should be universal. As

administrative capacity evolves, more sophisticated approaches to targeting can be

undertaken.

Public social protection policies are affordable even in low-income countries, though they

become more so as economic development takes place and public revenues improve.

Although start-up costs may be high, these can be spread over a number of years, and

implementation be progressive. Whereas under project modes of donor financing, support

for long-term recurrent expenditure was difficult (and resisted), the increasing use of

budget support makes donor support to social protection more possible. The key issue is

agreement between donors and government on the uses of budget support; this may not

be straightforward, since there are often competing approaches to social protection and

contested priorities. Another significant challenge is developing a sufficiently long time

horizon for budget support to make it worthwhile a government embarking on particular

social protection policies. If this challenge is too great, it may be better to rely on other

capital-based financing mechanisms, such as the ILO’s Global Trust.

The institutionalisation of social protection does not happen automatically, and there are

key strategic decisions to be made (Section 5). Political leadership is critical, as is the

articulation of a constituency and the development of a policy legitimation process.

Bureaucratic leadership and coordination is also important, as a social protection approach

is best ‘mainstreamed’ across various areas of government business. The Poverty

Reduction Strategy Process allows a common policy analytical approach to issues of risk

and vulnerabilities, which policies and programmes in various sectors – especially the

social and productive sectors, and macroeconomic policy – can buy into. Which

departments or ministries would best coordinate the development of a social protection

approach is context specific. The corollary of a mainstreamed approach is that it would be

important to maintain key cross-cutting safety nets which guard against risks with which

protective policies in particular sectors are unable to deal.

Whatever public policy actions are taken, informal provision should always be explicitly

considered, with a view both to reducing the inequitable burdens this sometimes imposes

and to facilitating the useful mutual protection which is afforded poor people. Mechanisms

that strengthen the social networks on which mutuality depends can also contribute.

Where states are fiscally challenged and donors exercise significant policy influence,

differences of view between government and donors (or within government and among

donors) about the role, organisation and desirable strength of social protection may make

the policy dialogue difficult. It would be a mistake to attach too rapid timetables to such a

dialogue. For policies with long-term implications, it is important that strong national

ownership is there from the start.