Publication: Crisis Response in Social Protection
Date
2012-03
ISSN
Published
2012-03
Author(s)
Marzo, Federica
Mori, Hideki
Abstract
The main goal of this paper is to draw
lessons from the past to better understand the role and
potential of social protection in response to crisis, and
support the definition of the World Bank social protection
and labor strategy 2012-2022. This paper uses selected
crises (1990-present), their social impact, and government
responses to evaluate the social protection instruments
deployed and provide lessons learned and possible directions
for the future, including questions for further analytical
work. While experience seems to suggest that governments and
the World Bank are increasingly committed to the
mainstreaming of social protection in crises prevention and
management, important challenges and questions to be
answered still remain to effectively protect populations,
especially in the case of low Income countries and fragile
states. Among the main messages emerging from the paper are,
first, that crises are very diverse in origins, channels of
transmission and impacts; second, preparing for crises by
fiscal prudence and by setting programs in place is crucial
to dispose of the necessary financial resources and to
increase the speed and reach of the response; third, the
design of permanent programs can be different from what is
required for crisis management measures, especially in the
aftermath of natural disasters. A solution could be to equip
programs with ready-to-implement, standardized emergency toolkits.
Citation
“Marzo, Federica; Mori, Hideki. 2012. Crisis Response in Social Protection. Social Protection and Labor Discussion Paper;No. 1205. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/99e8fae6-6c41-531c-bf7b-7d11edfe65b7 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”