Social Safety Nets Primer

28 items available

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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.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    Toolkit for Programming Assistance to Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Tovo, Maurizia; Prywes, Menahem; Kielland, Anne; Gibbons, Catherine; Saito, Junko
    Orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) are among the most vulnerable population groups in Africa. Without support and protection, they are exposed to the risk of abusive labor, lack of education, malnutrition, disease, and death. Estimates indicate that 20 percent of children in Sub-Saharan Africa are OVC. They constitute such a large group that, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), OVC concerns need to be mainstreamed into relevant World Bank projects and programs. This brief note refers to the toolkit designed as a web-based product to make it a widely accessible, live document. It draws on a large array of experiences and material from international agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), hence helping to disseminate lessons - good and bad - learnt in a variety of settings. The Toolkit is organized in four parts and twenty-four sections.
  • Publication
    Costs of Projects for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children : Case Studies in Eritrea and Benin
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-01) Prywes, Menahem
    Many developing countries are witnessing the emergence of a large and growing number of orphans, street children, and children in the worst forms of labor. In particular, conflict and HIV-AIDS have produced a large and growing cohort of orphans in Africa. Low cost solutions are critical if large numbers of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) are to be reached, yet there is very little information available on the actual costs of delivering services that assist them. This study estimates the costs of interventions in Benin and Eritrea, in order to determine which sorts of projects are most suitable for scaling up, given limited financial resources. The study measures the average annual economic costs of the project, while the economic analysis of costs used in the study includes depreciation, but also values the opportunity cost of the money tied up in the capital good. A key finding is that institutional solutions are costly compared to family based solutions.