New Frontiers of Social Policy

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This series is designed to address issues of importance to the World Bank's Social Development Strategy, which aims to empower people by transforming institutions to make them more inclusive, responsible, and accountable, and transforming subjects and beneficiaries into citizens with rights and responsibilities. Titles in this series undergo internal and external review under the management of the World Bank Social Development unit.

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Social Dimensions of Climate Change : Equity and Vulnerability in a Warming World

2010, Mearns, Robin, Mearns, Robin, Norton, Andrew

Climate change is widely acknowledged as foremost among the formidable challenges facing the international community in the 21st century. It poses challenges to fundamental elements of our understanding of appropriate goals for social and economic policy, such as the connection of prosperity, growth, equity, and sustainable development. This volume seeks to establish an agenda for research and action built on an enhanced understanding of the relationship between climate change and the key social dimensions of vulnerability, social justice, and equity. The volume is organized as follows. This introductory chapter first sets the scene by framing climate change as an issue of social justice at multiple levels, and by highlighting equity and vulnerability as the central organizing themes of an agenda on the social dimensions of climate change. Chapter two leads off with a review of existing theories and frameworks for understanding vulnerability, drawing out implications for pro-poor climate policy. Understanding the multilayered causal structure of vulnerability then can assist in identifying entry points for pro-poor climate policy at multiple levels. Building on such analytical approaches, chapters three and four, respectively, consider the implications of climate change for armed conflict and for migration. Those chapters are followed by a discussion of two of the most important social cleavages that characterize distinct forms of vulnerability to climate change and climate action: gender (chapter five) and ethnicity or indigenous identity (chapter six), in the latter case, focusing on the role of indigenous knowledge in crafting climate response measures in the Latin American and Caribbean region. Chapter seven highlights the important mediating role of local institutions in achieving more equitable, pro-poor outcomes from efforts to support adaptation to climate change. Chapter eight examines the implications of climate change for agrarian societies living in dry-land areas of the developing world, and chapter nine does the same for those living in urban centers. Chapter ten considers the role of social policy instruments in supporting pro-poor adaptation to climate change; and it argues for a focus on 'no-regrets' options that integrate adaptation with existing development approaches, albeit with modifications to take better account of the ways in which climate variables interact with other drivers of vulnerability. Finally, chapter eleven turns to the implications of climate policy and action for forest areas and forest people.

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Building Equality and Opportunity through Social Guarantees : New Approaches to Public Policy and the Realization of Rights

2009, Gacitúa-Marió, Estanislao, Norton, Andrew, Georgieva, Sophia V.

The book showcases an innovative approach to social policy that the author believes can act to transform the capacity of states to implement policies to enhance equality of opportunity among citizens. The approach is built around the framework of social guarantees and emphasizes multiple dimensions in the delivery of services and the realization of rights. The social guarantees approach converts abstract rights into defined standards that can be used as a framework for making public policy accountable to citizens. It emphasizes that effective realization of social rights requires attention not just to dimensions of access, but also to elements of quality, financial protection, and the availability of mechanisms of redress. Social guarantees strengthen citizenship through an emphasis on the policy mechanisms and democratic processes needed to define and support such standards. Rigorous analysis of available public resources and of institutions, programmatic approaches, and legal frameworks is essential to underpin the provision of social guarantees and to ensure that the set standards can be delivered to all.