Social Safety Nets Primer

28 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9431

This series is intended to provide a practical resource for those engaged in the design and implementation of safety net programs around the world. Readers will find information on good practices for a variety of types of interventions, country contexts, themes and target groups, as well as current thinking on the role of social safety nets in the broader development agenda.

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Natural Disasters : What is the Role for Social Safety Nets?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-06) Clay, Edward
The frequency of dramatic natural shocks around the world is a reminder that governments and the international community need to do more to prevent and mitigate the human misery and economic costs that result from such calamities. Natural disaster risk management is a multi-sectoral endeavor to mitigate disasters. Social risk management moves the focus away from the disaster to explore how the society manages hazards. In this, safety nets can play a part. Safety nets here refer to income support programs targeted to the neediest (either as a result of ongoing poverty or the effect of the disaster itself) as a preventive measure, and in the recovery and rebuilding phase; not to emergency relief which is a vital first response and a different area of expertise. Such programs can operate through different modalities - cash, kind, public workfare; be targeted more or less broadly, and be implemented by a range of actors.
How to Make Public Works Work : A Review of the Experiences
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-09) Subbarao, Kalanidhi; del Ninno, Carlo; Milazzo, Annamaria
Public work programs (PWPs) have been an important safety nets instrument used in diverse country circumstances at different points in time in both middle income and low income countries. Well-designed and implemented PWPs can help mitigating income shocks; the programs can also be used to reduce poverty. This paper reviews the experience with PWPs in several countries over the past 20 years to delineate use patterns and to determine the factors contributing to its use as a successful safety net program. This is done by reviewing cross-country variations in the design, implementation procedures and delivery models followed by an assessment of methods for monitoring and evaluation specific to public works.
Social Safety Nets in World Bank Lending and Analytical Work : FY2002–2007
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-01) Andrews, Colin
During FY 2002-2007 the World Bank engaged with 118 countries on social safety net (SSN) issues, providing lending in 68, analytic products in 86, training in 87, and a combined package of all three services in 42. A review of these safety net activities shows a strong diversity with respect to the regions, types of intervention, sectors and financing instruments. This reflects evolving thought within the Bank with respect to the role of safety nets in broad development strategies, not just immediate or temporary programs. The findings of the portfolio review take into account all project and analytic documents where a thematic code of 'social safety nets' was assigned. The analysis shows a noticeable variability over time, particularly as the portfolio expanded when large or multiple countries faced economic crises. The regional distribution of safety net activities reflects the dominance of Latin America, with emerging activities in the African and South Asian context.
Levels and Patterns of Safety Net Spending in Developing and Transition Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-01) Andrews, Colin
This paper offers a new set of data compiled from individual World Bank country reports and covering 87 developing and transition countries during 1996-2006. The findings show that mean spending on safety nets is 1.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and median spending is 1.4 percent of GDP across developing and transition countries. For about half of these countries, spending falls between 1 and 2 percent of GDP. Some variation is apparent. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, for example, spend considerably less than 1 percent of GDP, while spending on social safety nets in Ethiopia and Malawi is nearly 4.5 percent of GDP because international aid is counted, but would be more like 0.5 percent if only domestically financed spending were counted. Other high-spending countries, Mauritius, South Africa, and the Slovak Republic, finance their safety nets domestically. Spending on safety nets is less variable than spending on social protection or the social sectors.
High Labour Intensive (HIMO) Public Works in Madagascar : Issues and Policy Options
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12) Milazzo, Anna Maria
High labor intensive (HIMO) public work programs have been very popular in recent years in Madagascar. They have been one of the most common safety net program used to address poverty and vulnerability. The objective of these programs has been to provide income support to the poor in critical times, e.g. after natural disasters, or to respond to seasonal shortfalls in employment during the agricultural slack period (soudure), and to improve much needed local infrastructures. The Government has recently increased its commitment to assisting poor households to prevent, mitigate and cope with the consequences of these shocks. The poverty reduction strategy paper, presented by the Government in 2003, calls for a national strategy for social protection to address risks and vulnerabilities as a central challenge to reduce poverty and improve human capital in Madagascar. To supplement effective implementation of policies in the area of social protection, the Government developed a National Risk Management and Social Protection Strategy (NRMSPS) in 2007.
Management Information Systems in Social Safety Net Programs : A Look at Accountability and Control Mechanisms
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-01) Andrews, Colin
The paper aims to provide practitioners working on Social Safety Net (SSN) projects with practical ways to use information management practices to mitigate accountability and control risks. The paper outlines a Management Information System (MIS) framework for SSN projects, as well as identifying risk mitigation strategies to be considered in MIS design and evaluation. The analysis draws on several Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs in Latin America that incorporate industry standards and information management practices for both automated and paper-based projects.
Reducing Error, Fraud and Corruption (EFC) in Social Protection Programs
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-01) Tesliuc, Emil Daniel; Milazzo, Annamaria
Social Protection (SP) and Social Safety Net (SSN) programs channel a large amount of public resources, it is important to make sure that these reach the intended beneficiaries. Error, fraud, or corruption (EFC) reduces the economic efficiency of these interventions by decreasing the amount of money that goes to the intended beneficiaries, and erodes the political support for the program. While no program is immune to EFC, evidence from developed countries demonstrates that such leakage can be brought to negligible levels. In five Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (UK, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and USA) this fraction is between 2-5 percent for the SP sector as a whole. For SSN programs, which use more complex eligibility criteria and hence are more prone to EFC, this fraction is 10 percent. To achieve these results, programs have implemented a number of measures reviewed in this note. In contrast, efforts to combat or even measure EFC are quite rare in developing countries, although some programs are plagued by it.
Social Safety Nets in OECD Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-01) Tesliuc, Emil
The focus of the note is on non-contributory social programs for low-income households, or other vulnerable groups in OECD countries. These programs, typically referred to as social safety net (SSN) programs in developing countries, are labeled welfare programs in the US and social assistance programs in the European Union. This note covers 28 countries belonging to the OECD, and refers to an in depth review of SSN programs in the US and nine European Union countries prepared for a course on "Social Safety Nets in OECD Countries." The accompanying course materials have been developed by a team from the Urban Institute (for the US) and the University of Maastricht (for nine European Union countries). The material on US welfare policies also draws on Lindert (2005), and the review of reforms in OECD countries from Abt (2003).
Reaching out to Africa’s Orphans A Framework for Public Action
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) World Bank
Conflicts and the HIV-AIDS pandemic are generating a major humanitarian crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa: the number of children who have lost one or both parents is expected to rise to 35 million by 2010. Even prior to the death of parents, children are vulnerable as prolonged sickness of a parent robs them of their childhood, often forcing them to become breadwinners. The risk of orphanhood is no longer a random shock affecting a few families; it is a systemic shock affecting whole communities and large segments of the population.
Aging and Poverty in Africa and the Role of Social Pensions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Subbarao, Kalanidhi
In many low income African countries, three factors are placing an undue burden on the elderly: 1) the burden on the elderly has enormously increased with the increase in mortality of prime age adults due to the HIV-AIDS pandemic and regional conflicts; 2) the traditional safety net of the extended family has become ineffective and unreliable for the elderly; and, 3) in a few countries, the elderly are called upon to shoulder the responsibility of the family as they became the principal breadwinners, and caregivers for young children. While a number of studies have examined the welfare consequences of these developments on children, few studies have systematically analyzed the poverty situation among the elderly (relative to other groups) in low income countries in Africa, and the role of social pensions. This study aims to fill this gap. The findings show much heterogeneity across countries with respect to the proportion of the elderly population, the living arrangements, and the composition of households, and household headship. The analysis shows that the poverty situation, and especially the poverty gap ratio, for the household types the "elderly only", the "elderly with children" and the "elderly-headed households" is much higher than the average in several countries, and the differences are statistically significant. The analysis further shows that the fiscal cost of providing a universal non-contributory social pension to all of the elderly will be quite high - 2 percent to 3 percent of GDP, a level comparable to, or even higher, than the levels of total public spending on health care in some countries. While categorical targeting of a pension for the above groups yields the maximum poverty reduction impacts, and is also fiscally sustainable even in low income countries, its operational feasibility is considered to be weak. The study concludes that the case for a universal approach is weak. The best option appears to be to target the pension only to the poor among the elderly, keeping the benefit level low. The study underscores the need for more country-specific work to explore the feasibility of the recommended option in diverse country settings.