Person:
del Ninno, Carlo
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Social protection
Degrees
Departments
Global Practice for Social Protection and Labor, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Carlo del Ninno is a senior economist in the Social Protection Africa Unit of the World Bank, working on several aspects of safety net policies and programs. He previously worked in the Social Protection and Labor practice of the Human Development Network at the World Bank. Over the past 10 years, he has worked on analytical and operational issues on safety net programs covering several countries in Africa and South Asia. Before joining the World Bank, he worked on food security for the International Food Policy Research Institute in Bangladesh, and on poverty analysis in several countries for the Policy Research Division of the World Bank and Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and has published on safety nets, food policy, and food security.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 14
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Publication
Improving Payment Mechanisms in Cash-Based Safety Net Programs
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-08)Cash transfers have proliferated in the past decade as key policy instruments to tackle vulnerability and inequality. Payment mechanisms (PMs), the backbone of cash transfers, are the channels through which cash travels from the funding source to the hands of beneficiaries. In theory, the harmonization of payment flows in PMs with other program processes is critical to delivering the right benefit to the right people at the right time while minimizing costs. In reality, however, PMs tend to remain disconnected, rendering payments inefficient and plagued by error, fraud and corruption. In recent years, program operators, financial institutions, and technology innovators have developed strategies for streamlining payment flows. These innovations, if properly integrated into program management through a Management Information System (MIS) and supported by rigorous outreach, can not only promote efficiency and transparency but also ensure effectiveness. This paper provides a framework for integrating PMs within program management. It walks the reader through seven basic steps to process payments. It does so by articulating the flow of beneficiary information and funds from the point of beneficiary enrollment to payment reconciliation and grievance redress. It also looks at the framework through the lenses of different cash transfer interventions and the cases of Kenya, Rwanda, and Mexico. The paper concludes that to execute successful PMs it is key to: (i) integrate payments within an MIS; (ii) adopt a cost-effective mix of traditional and technology instruments suitable to the country's context in the short and long run; (iii) decentralize the control and accountability of service provision across government levels; (iv) understand the capacity and incentives of stakeholders; (v) provide manuals, training and information to key players; and (vi) enforce payment parameters and penalize their violation. -
Publication
Burkina Faso Social Safety Nets
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-01)This report provides an inventory of safety net programs in Burkina Faso and suggests policy measures that could increase their coverage, efficiency, and sustainability. It shows that the scope and coverage of the existing safety nets is too limited. Most interventions are small and temporary. On average, excluding subsidies, annual spending on safety nets constituted only 0.6 percent of GDP while about 20 percent of the population is food-insecure and chronically poor. Food transfers are the main safety net program, accounting for 69 percent of total spending and over 80 percent of all beneficiaries. Most of the financing for safety nets is external. The report recommends developing a safety net system that adequately responds to the needs of the poor. -
Publication
Cameroon Social Safety Nets
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06)This report lays the groundwork for a safety net system that can address the needs of the poor in Cameroon. Cameroon does not have a coordinated system of safety nets; rather, small, isolated interventions which together do not address the needs. Moreover, food and fuel price subsidies which mainly benefit the rich cost around 2 percent of GDP/year much more than total safety net spending. There is a need for a social protection strategy and an effective safety net system to address chronic poverty and food insecurity in Cameroon. This strategy should identify risks and vulnerabilities so they can be addressed by appropriate programs. Investments in human capital and in geographic areas most affected by poverty the North and Far North should be priority. -
Publication
Niger : Food Security and Safety Nets
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-02)This study aims to assist the Government of Niger in developing a multi-sectoral approach to reducing the population s vulnerability to food insecurity. The study reviews food security policies and programs in Niger, and provides an action plan for strengthening the existing system and developing an effective safety net strategy. The study finds that targeting of food aid has been either weak with significant leakages. Moreover, although the need to support poor and food insecure households is substantial, safety nets are small, receive limited funding, and are designed for emergency food crises. The study recommends to improve the efficiency and scope of safety net programs in Niger and to promote effective strategies to improve food availability and the emergency response systems. -
Publication
For Protection and Promotion : The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)All countries fund safety net programs for the protection of their people. Though an increasing number of safety net programs are extremely well thought out, adroitly implemented, and demonstrably effective, many others are not. This book aims to assist those concerned with social policy to understand why countries need social assistance, what kind of safety programs will serve those best and how to develop such programs for maximum effectiveness. Safety nets are part of a broader poverty reduction strategy interacting with and working alongside of social insurance; health, education, and financial services; the provision of utilities and roads; and other policies aimed at reducing poverty and managing risk. Though useful, safety nets are not a panacea, and there are real concerns over whether they are affordable and administratively feasible or desirable in light of the various negative incentives they might create. In most settings where there is political will to do so, such concerns can be managed through a number of prudent design and implementation features. Much information and innovation exist on these topics; this book summarizes, references, and builds on this knowledge base to promote well-crafted safety nets and safety net policy. -
Publication
Reaching the Poor: Cash Transfer Program Targeting in Cameroon
(Elsevier, 2016-07)Identifying and selecting poor households with efficient targeting methods is essential for effective poverty alleviation programs. This paper assesses the ex-post performance of two popular targeting mechanisms, Proxy Means Testing (PMT) and Community-Based Targeting (CBT), in a pilot cash transfer program in Cameroon. Several indicators and metrics to measure each method’s performance in terms of inclusion of poor households and exclusion of non-poor households are employed. Results consistently show that CBT performs poorly in terms of selecting households with low per capita consumption when compared to PMT. CBT appears to select households with low physical and human capital, regardless of actual consumption level. However, CBT also shows more variability in the selection decision than PMT even when alternative poverty definitions are used as robustness tests. The PMT method used in the pilot slightly outperforms other targeting methods (hybrid, alternative PMT, and universal targeting with equal budget), but errors remain high when selecting 35% of the population for program participation. The results suggest caution is needed in employing CBT methods to select households with low per capita consumption in an environment where poverty levels are high and administrative capacities are limited. CBT performance may be improved through more uniform and consistent guidance on program selection criteria and process, including explicit criteria that enable CBT monitoring, as well as a better integration between PMT and CBT. -
Publication
Social Protection Programs for Africa's Drylands
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-08-09)Social Protection Programs for Africa’s Drylands explores the role of social protection in promoting the well-being and prosperity of people living in dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a specific focus on the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. Based on a review of recent experience, it argues that social protection policies and programs have an important role in promoting the resilience of the people residing in these areas. Social protection programs, when well designed and carefully implemented at scale, can reduce vulnerability to droughts and other shocks and promote coping capacity. If present trends continue, by 2030 dryland regions of East and West Africa will be home to an estimated 429 million people, up to 24 percent of whom will be living in chronic poverty. Many others will depend on livelihood strategies that are sensitive to the shocks that will hit the region with increasing frequency and severity, making them vulnerable to falling into transient poverty. Social protection programs will be needed in the drylands to provide support to those unable to meet their basic needs. Some of these people will require long-term support, while others will require periodic short-term support because of income losses due to shocks (for example, crop failure following a drought) or as a result of lifecycle changes (for example, loss of a breadwinner). Safety net programs can increase resilience in the short term by improving coping capacity of vulnerable households. Rapidly scalable safety nets that provide cash, food, or other resources to shock-affected households can allow them to recover from unexpected shocks. Scaling up an existing safety net program can be far less expensive than relying on appeals for humanitarian assistance to meet urgent needs. Social protection programs can increase resilience over the longer term by reducing sensitivity to shocks of vulnerable households especially if combined with other development programs. Providing predictable support to chronically poor households and enabling them to invest in productive assets and access basic social services can effectively reduce these households’ sensitivity to future shocks, help them participate in the growth process, and take advantage of the investments made in agricultural and pastoralist activities proposed in the drylands. -
Publication
Safety Nets in Africa : Effective Mechanisms to Reach the Poor and Most Vulnerable: Des méthodes efficaces pour cibler les populations pauvres et vulnérables en Afrique Sub-Saharienne
(Washington, DC: World Bank; and Agence Française de Développement, 2015-01-29)The need for safety nets in Sub-Saharan Africa is vast. In addition to being the world’s poorest region, Sub-Saharan Africa is also one of the most unequal. In this context, redistribution must be seen as a legitimate way to fight poverty and ensure shared prosperity - and all the more so in countries where growth is driven by extractive industries that are not labor-intensive and often employ very few poor people. Given that most African countries face difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources among a number of social programs, evidence is important. Do Safety Net programs actually benefit the poorest people? This book demonstrates with empirical evidence that it is possible to reach the poorest and most vulnerable people with safety net programs, and provides lessons for the effective use of targeting methods to achieve this outcome in the region. -
Publication
Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-05-20)Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to the impacts of large, covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflict, and forced displacement. Through the provision of transfers and services directly to these households, ASP supports their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to the shocks they face—before, during, and after these shocks occur. Over the long term, by supporting these three capacities, ASP can provide a pathway to a more resilient state for households that may otherwise lack the resources to move out of chronically vulnerable situations. Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks outlines an organizing framework for the design and implementation of ASP, providing insights into the ways in which social protection systems can be made more capable of building household resilience. By way of its four building blocks—programs, information, finance, and institutional arrangements and partnerships—the framework highlights both the elements of existing social protection systems that are the cornerstones for building household resilience, as well as the additional investments that are central to enhancing their ability to generate these outcomes. In this report, the ASP framework and its building blocks have been elaborated primarily in relation to natural disasters and associated climate change. Nevertheless, many of the priorities identified within each building block are also pertinent to the design and implementation of ASP across other types of shocks, providing a foundation for a structured approach to the advancement of this rapidly evolving and complex agenda. -
Publication
Public Works as a Safety Net : Design, Evidence, and Implementation
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013)From the Victorian poor laws in nineteenth century Britain to the post-war recovery of the 1940s, public works programs have historically played an important role as countercyclical interventions to address seasonal and short-term unemployment. In recent times, the role of public works has broadened, because globalization and economic integration, while expanding opportunities for all, has also increased the exposure to and transmission of risk, especially to the poorest. Public works are now being used increasingly across the developing world as an essential part of the social protection toolkit to respond to risk and persistent poverty. And recent flagship public works programs in Argentina, Ethiopia, India, and elsewhere have sparked even greater interest in their effective use in other developing-country contexts. This book provides a comprehensive overview of public works programs as a safety net instrument and their impacts. It also provides a practical review of program design features and implementation methods, and a compendium of operational and how-to knowledge, combining technical expertise with ongoing country experiences. The book thus fills a major knowledge gap in this field. To date, much attention has been devoted to making the case for improved public works, with less attention paid to the how-to aspects. The target audience of the book includes policy makers and practitioners in national and sub-national governments, donors and international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations, particularly those working in countries where a new wave of social protection interventions has been seen in recent years (e.g., Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda) or is likely to emerge in the future (e.g., countries emerging from the Arab Spring in the Middle East, like the Arab Republic of Egypt).