Gentilini, Ugo

Person:
Gentilini, Ugo

Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice

Fields of Specialization

Social protection, Welfare economics, Development economics, Agricultural economics, Labor markets

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Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice

Last updated: December 3, 2024

Biography

Ugo Gentilini serves as Global Lead for Social Assistance at the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice. He has 20 years of experience in the analytics, practice, and evaluation of social protection systems, particularly in the realm of cash transfers, food assistance, price subsidies, public works, and select active labor market policies. His publications encompass flagship reports, edited volumes, academic journals, and operational guidelines, covering labor markets, urbanization, agriculture, food security, nutrition, subsidy reforms, crisis preparedness and response, and mobility. Ugo holds a PhD in development economics, blogs frequently, and produces a newsletter on social protection (ugogentilini.net) reaching thousands of practitioners on a weekly basis.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Tracking Global Social Protection Responses to Inflation: Living Paper, v.5
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-30) Almenfi, Mohamed; Gentilini, Ugo; Iyengar, Hrishikesh TMM; Okamura, Yuko; Urteaga, Emilio Raul; Valleriani, Giorgia; Aziz, Sheraz; Al Azim Bin Noruzi, Mohammad Farid; Chu, Margret
Between December 2022 and May 2023, the number of social protection and other related measures announced or implemented in response to inflation rose by about 31%. The latest tally includes 1,333 responses across 178 economies. Overall, subsidies claim 33% of such measures and take four main forms (fuel, food, fertilizers, and various fee subsidies). Social assistance accounts for 31% of responses, 77% of which is provided in the form of cash transfers. Tax measures represent 19% of the global responses, and trade, active labor market policies and social insurance claim a share of 6% each. Based on planned coverage data from 116 economies, social protection programs intend to cover 1.94 billion people or about 25% of the world’s population. But so far, actual coverage shows that 303.5 million individuals, or about 4% of the global population, were reached (based on data from 36 economies). Next, based on expenditure data from 561 programs across 143 economies, a total of $1.01 trillion is being invested in social protection responses. This involves an average country spending of 1.06% of GDP. The average size of both social assistance and subsidy transfers represents slightly over a quarter (i.e., 27%) of the daily median income, while their average initial duration is 7.3 months. Almost one-fifth of the responses to inflation have been extended, and the average duration of such extensions is 8.5 months. Over half of social assistance transfers are new (56%) and are provided on a one-off basis (47%).
Keep the Pace: How Inflation Erodes Cash Transfers and What to Do About it
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-03) Gentilini, Ugo; Iyengar, Hrishikesh TMM; Valleriani, Giorgia; Aziz, Sheraz; Arimbi, Hana Rakhma; Miranda Nogueira, Jusaine Lis; Trujillo, María Angélica; Cheng, Calvin
The report on the indexation of benefits within the adaptive social protection (ASP) framework underscores the importance of linking cash transfers to inflation to maintain their adequacy amidst changing economic conditions. It analyzes 232 non-contributory cash transfer programs across 158 countries, revealing that nearly four-fifths incorporate some form of indexation, with about one-third using automatic adjustments. The study documents the evolution of indexation practices, highlighting the strengths and limitations of different types, such as discretionary versus automatic adjustments, and their fiscal and political implications. The report calls for a tailored operational agenda to refine indexation practices, including selecting appropriate benchmarks and customizing indexation to specific cash transfer designs, with the findings and case studies serving as a foundation for future innovation.
Is the Magic Happening?: A Systematic Literature Review of the Economic Multiplier of Cash Transfers
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-07-31) Gassmann, Franziska; Gentilini, Ugo; Morais, Julieta; Nunnenmacher, Conrad; Okamura, Yuko; Bordon, Guilio; Valleriani, Giorgia
The multiplier effects of cash transfers are receiving renewed attention globally. The existence of multipliers — or the generation of additional dollars for every one dollar injected as cash transfers — illuminates new aspects of the impacts of social assistance and holds the potential to redefine how “fiscal sustainability” is generally interpreted. However, multipliers also attract questions: are multipliers real and tangible? How are multipliers estimated? What method might be more suitable than others in different contexts? What does the evidence reveal about those effects? This paper briefly summarizes emerging findings from existing literature on low- and middle-income countries, including a total of 23 studies. The paper discusses the main estimation methods, such as social accounting matrix and econometric techniques; presents results on multipliers across studies; and draws lessons for future research and practice.
School Meals, Social Protection, and Human Development: Revisiting Trends, Evidence, and Practices in South Asia and Beyond
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-17) Bundy, Donal AP; Gentilini, Ugo; Schultz, Linda; Bedasso, Biniam; Singh, Samrat; Okamura, Yuko; Iyengar, Hrishikesh TMM; Blakstad, Mia Monique
With nearly 420 million children reached worldwide, school meals are among the largest-scale social protection interventions. This paper traces the evolution of school meals programs globally, examines the empirical evidence underpinning them, reviews select implementation practices with an emphasis on South Asia, and provides one of the first estimates of World Bank’s investments in school meals.
Cash Transfers in the Context of Energy Subsidy Reform: Insights from Recent Experience
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-30) Mukherjee, Anit; Okamura, Yuko; Gentilini, Ugo; Gencer, Defne; Almenfi, Mohamed; Kryeziu, Adea; Montenegro, Miriam; Umapathi, Nithin
Energy subsidies, which have a long history of use by governments around the world, have been rising in recent years after a brief period of decline. Despite their significant wider costs, subsidies are used by governments for various policy, and political, reasons. Faced with recent external shocks, governments around the world have had to manage difficult tradeoffs between the need to protect their citizens against substantial increases in the cost of living and the fiscal risks that greater and continued subsidies impose. General consumption subsidies, such as universal price subsidies for fossil fuels, tend to be regressive. Over the past several decades, as part of the evolving understanding of energy subsidy reforms, there has been growing recognition of the potential of targeted cash transfers to support the poor and vulnerable to help governments achieve desired policy outcomes at lower fiscal cost and in a sustainable manner. The use of cash transfers to mitigate the impact of price increases from an energy subsidy reform puts a country’s social protection framework in the spotlight, along with the role social protection can play in bolstering national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While getting prices right is important in eliminating distortions and incentivizing efficient use of energy, cash transfers can help countries mitigate and adapt to climate change and make the transition to a green economy by smoothing the adjustment to changing energy costs.
Cash Transfers in Pandemic Times: Evidence, Practices, and Implications from the Largest Scale Up in History
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-07) Gentilini, Ugo
Is Coronavirus (Covid-19) a “game changer” for cash transfers? This tantalizing question has animated a large body of recent literature and over 60 virtual panels. This paper offers some clues to address the question by bringing together data, evaluations and practical experiences generated over the course of the pandemic. In particular, the paper flashes out differences between Covid-19 and other crises; it lays out an anatomy of global responses and offers novel data analysis around stylized international trends; synthesizes fresh empirical evidence on response effectiveness based on over 40 evaluations; discusses country-level operational practices as emerging from an array of high and lower-income contexts; and distills key insights with possible future implications.
Exploring Universal Basic Income: A Guide to Navigating Concepts, Evidence, and Practices
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020) Gentilini, Ugo; Grosh, Margaret; Rigolini, Jamele; Yemtsov, Ruslan; Gentilini, Ugo; Grosh, Margaret; Rigolini, Jamele; Yemtsov, Ruslan; Bastagli, Francesca; Lustig, Nora; Monsalve Montiel, Emma; Quan, Siyu; Ter-Minassian, Teresa; De Wispelaere, Jurgen; Lowe, Christina; George, Tina
Universal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and survey data, this volume provides a framework to elucidate issues and trade-offs in UBI with a view to help inform choices around its appropriateness and feasibility in different contexts. Specifically, the book examines how UBI differs from or complements other social assistance programs in terms of objectives, coverage, incidence, adequacy, incentives, effects on poverty and inequality, financing, political economy, and implementation. It also reviews past and current country experiences, surveys the full range of existing policy proposals, provides original results from micro–tax benefit simulations, and sets out a range of considerations around the analytics and practice of UBI.
Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-05-20) Bowen, Thomas; del Ninno, Carlo; Andrews, Colin; Coll-Black, Sarah; Gentilini, Ugo; Johnson, Kelly; Kawasoe, Yasuhiro; Kryeziu, Adea; Maher, Barry; Williams, Asha
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.
Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-04-17) Almenfi, Mohamed; Gentilini, Ugo; Orton, Ian; Dale, Pamela
Some key finds from this "living paper" include : As of April 23, 2020, a total of 151 countries (18 more since last week) have planned, introduced or adapted 684 social protection measures in response to COVID-19 (Coronavirus). This is a ten-fold increase in measures since the first edition of this living paper (March 20). New countries include Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belarus, Bermuda, Brunei, Chad, Grenada, Libya, Montserrat, Nigeria, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, St Maarten, and UAE. Social assistance transfers are the most widely used class of interventions (60 percent of global responses, or 412 measures). These are complemented by significant action in social insurance and labor market-related measures (supply-side measures). Among safety nets, cash transfer programs remain the most widely used safety net intervention by governments (table 1 and figure 2). Overall, cash transfers include 222 COVID-related measures representing one-third (32.4 percent) of total COVID-related social protection programs. Cash transfers include a mix of both new and pre-existing programs of various duration and generosity. About half (47 percent) of cash transfers are new programs in 78 countries (reaching 512.6 million people), while one-fifth (22 percent) of measures are one-off payments. The average duration of transfers is 2.9 months. The size of transfers is relatively generous, or one-fifth (22 percent) of monthly GDP per capita in respective countries. On average, this is an increase of 86.6 percent compared to average pre-COVID transfer levels (where data is available for a subset of countries).
Cash in the City: Emerging Lessons from Implementing Cash Transfers in Urban Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01) Khosla, Saksham; Gentilini, Ugo; Almenfi, Mohamed
Poverty and crises are rapidly â€œurbanizingâ€ . Yet experience with operationalizing cash transfers in urban areas is limited. This paper captures early lessons from a new generation of urban cash transfer responses to Covid-19 in eleven African countries. The analysis contextualizes such initiatives within a longer-term trajectory of urban social protection programs from the early 2000s. A range of lessons emerge around design and implementation, partnerships, institutions and political economy, strategic issues, and evidence and learning.