Publication: Entering the City: Emerging Evidence and Practices with Safety Nets in Urban Areas
Loading...
Date
2015-07
ISSN
Published
2015-07
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Most safety net programs in low and middle-income countries have hitherto been conceived for rural areas. Yet as the global urban population increases and poverty urbanizes, it becomes of utmost importance to understand how to make safety nets work in urban settings. This paper discusses the process of urbanization, the peculiar features of urban poverty, and emerging experiences with urban safety net programs in dozens of countries. It does so by reviewing multidisciplinary literature, examining household survey data, and presenting a compilation of case studies from a ‘first generation’ of programs. The paper finds that urban areas pose fundamentally different sets of opportunities and challenges for social protection, and that safety net programs are at the very beginning of a process of urban adaptation. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Gentilini, Ugo. 2015. Entering the City: Emerging Evidence and Practices with Safety Nets in Urban Areas. Social protection and labor discussion paper,no. 1504;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22482 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Vietnam : Formal and Informal Social Assistance in Metropolitan Cities - A Rapid Assessment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-04)The expanding coverage of social assistance in Vietnam raises a question of whether relevant arrangements at all levels are sufficiently robust to handle a larger program. This note explores institutional and delivery aspects of formal and informal social assistance in metropolitan cities. It is a result of a rapid assessment of governance and administration of social assistance in metropolitan cities, including interviews with related stakeholders in Ho Chi Minh City in July 2010 and in Hanoi in January 2011. Basically, the existing governance and administrative structures for delivery of Decrees 67/13 assistance in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are characterized by a number of common issues elsewhere in the country, as described in previous studies. In addition, this note finds that while the cities may have resources to self-finance their assistance under Decrees 67/13 and provide significant informal assistance through various channels, their determination of exclusive poverty lines without sound scientific grounds may result in substantial inclusion and exclusion errors in locally funded schemes of aid. Furthermore, although the cities provided some forms of off-budget temporary assistance in response to the economic crisis in 2009, their targeting was based on the poor list and the 'conventional' administrative classification of residence status rather than consideration of actual needs as arisen from the crisis. These findings entail systematically strengthening the governance and administrative system of social assistance, given proven substantial increases in beneficiary coverage under Decree 13; improving methods of determining poverty lines; and developing measures to identify emerging needs from external catastrophic shocks and thus formulating an appropriate targeting mechanism in the metropolitan cities. Also, a mechanism is required to effectively harmonize formal and informal assistance in order to optimize resources and maximize the coverage of assistance to needy individuals and households.Publication Inclusive Heritage-Based City Development Program in India(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-10-01)This report summarizes the motivation, objectives, methodology, results and lessons learned from the design and implementation of the Demonstration Program on Inclusive Heritage-based City Development in India. The development objective of this program is to test an inclusive heritage-based approach to city development planning in three pilot cities with a focus on learning and future expansion. The pilot cities include a metropolis (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh), a medium-size city (Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh) and a small city (Ajmer-Pushkar, Rajasthan). The pilot cities have been selected on the basis of population, living standards in historic areas, heritage value and reform orientation. These cities represent India s diversity in terms of settlements as well as social and cultural heritage, and provide scope for customizing the tested planning instruments, specific institutional and financial arrangements and methods at an early stage. An initial activity is the first phase of a larger program aimed at providing national policy makers, state governments, urban local bodies and sector professionals in India with exemplary practices, institutional arrangements as well as financial and management incentives that can assist them in incorporating cultural heritage into their overall city development planning framework. This activity has three components: component 1 offers institutional set-up and selection of pilot cities; component 2 provides advisory support to pilot Cities; and component 3 maintains knowledge management and learning systems. Overall, the program is expected to leverage existing public funds under national and state-level schemes that have been earmarked for urban renewal investments but are currently not being utilized for this purpose due to lack of capacities, appropriate mechanisms and tools.Publication Latin America & the Caribbean - Urban Services Delivery and the Poor : The Case of Three Central American Cities (Vol. 1 of 2) : Service Delivery and Poverty(Washington, DC, 2002-06-03)The present study describes, and quantifies the provision of basic urban services to the poor, in three Central American cities in El Salvador, Honduras, and, Panama. It also identifies priority areas for government intervention, using specialized household surveys to quantify current deficits, and to rank households from poor to rich, using aggregate consumption as the measure of welfare. The urban poverty profile is examined in each city, through migration, growth, and mobility patterns, including education and labor characteristics. In terms of land and housing, in all three cities, almost half of the poor who reported being property owners have weak, or no documentation over their properties, and, considerable portions of the poor population, are not connected to the public aqueduct, while few if any, receive help from the government. High dependency on public transportation was reported, e.g., one hundred percent in El Salvador, ninety seven percent in Tegucigalpa. Institutional, and policy issues explain the current situation: in terms of decentralization, municipalities have limited functions vis-a-vis the delivery of basic services; as for the housing sector, there is a vast gap between housing provision, and housing finance; and, particularly for water, and sanitation, the institutional framework for the delivery of basic services, is characterized by great uncertainty. Strikingly, public transportation is entirely provided by the private sector, but the lack of regulation, causes problems reflected in an overall low quality of service.Publication Indonesia : Urban Poverty and Program Review(Washington, DC, 2013-01)This policy note provides a summary of extensive analysis carried out on urban poverty in Indonesia today and a review of main urban poverty programs, with the objective of providing the basis for an urban poverty reduction strategy. A second policy note, 'Indonesia: evaluation of the urban Community-Driven Development, or CDD program, Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat (PNPM)' summarizes a more detailed process evaluation that was carried out of this important program in parallel to the urban poverty analysis and program review. The PNPM-Urban evaluation covers issues related to internal efficiency, distills lessons learned, and identifies options for improving program effectiveness. The two pieces together provide context for the review of existing programs and strategic directions for addressing urban poverty, as well as more specific operational recom-mendations for enhancing impact of the PNPM-Urban Program. Section one includes this introduction and the analytical approach of the study, section two covers the analysis of poverty trends and characteristics, section three includes the review urban poverty programs and benefit incidence analysis, and section four discusses policy implications for urban poverty reduction.Publication Country Social Analysis : Ethnicity and Development in Vietnam - Summary report(World Bank, 2009-01-01)This report " Country Social Analysis (CSA) " focused on ethnicity and development in Vietnam is a provocative analysis of marginality in contemporary Southeast Asia. It seeks to understand the macro social and political processes, and provides an analysis of how social, political, and cultural factors influence the opportunities and constraints to more equitable, inclusive development. This study provides research findings to support both the Bank's and the government of Vietnam's goals of social inclusion for ethnic minorities and poverty reduction. Previous studies, including the Bank's Country Partnership Study for Vietnam (CPS) and the government's Socioeconomic Development Plan (SEDP), focus on four organizing principles: (1) improving the business environment; (2) strengthening social inclusion; (3) strengthening natural resource and environmental management; and (4) improving governance. This study focuses particularly on the issue of strengthening social inclusion. Part one of this summary report is a literature review that discusses background information on ethnic minorities, including their classification, history, current living conditions, and poverty outcomes. Part two presents the results of field-based research and provides in-depth analysis of six fundamental factors that explain how differences between ethnic groups contribute to remarkably different livelihood strategies and economic outcomes. Part three summarizes the policy implications of research findings, suggesting areas for further consideration.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.Publication World Development Report 2004(World Bank, 2003)Too often, services fail poor people in access, in quality, and in affordability. But the fact that there are striking examples where basic services such as water, sanitation, health, education, and electricity do work for poor people means that governments and citizens can do a better job of providing them. Learning from success and understanding the sources of failure, this year’s World Development Report, argues that services can be improved by putting poor people at the center of service provision. How? By enabling the poor to monitor and discipline service providers, by amplifying their voice in policymaking, and by strengthening the incentives for providers to serve the poor. Freedom from illness and freedom from illiteracy are two of the most important ways poor people can escape from poverty. To achieve these goals, economic growth and financial resources are of course necessary, but they are not enough. The World Development Report provides a practical framework for making the services that contribute to human development work for poor people. With this framework, citizens, governments, and donors can take action and accelerate progress toward the common objective of poverty reduction, as specified in the Millennium Development Goals.Publication Impact Evaluation in Practice, Second Edition(Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank, 2016-09-13)The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.Publication Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006)This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.Publication World Development Report 2009(World Bank, 2009)Places do well when they promote transformations along the dimensions of economic geography: higher densities as cities grow; shorter distances as workers and businesses migrate closer to density; and fewer divisions as nations lower their economic borders and enter world markets to take advantage of scale and trade in specialized products. World Development Report 2009 concludes that the transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are essential for development and should be encouraged. The conclusion is controversial. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. A billion people live in lagging areas of developing nations, remote from globalizations many benefits. And poverty and high mortality persist among the world’s bottom billion, trapped without access to global markets, even as others grow more prosperous and live ever longer lives. Concern for these three intersecting billions often comes with the prescription that growth must be spatially balanced. This report has a different message: economic growth will be unbalanced. To try to spread it out is to discourage it to fight prosperity, not poverty. But development can still be inclusive, even for people who start their lives distant from dense economic activity. For growth to be rapid and shared, governments must promote economic integration, the pivotal concept, as this report argues, in the policy debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration. Instead, all three debates overemphasize place-based interventions. Reshaping Economic Geography reframes these debates to include all the instruments of integration spatially blind institutions, spatially connective infrastructure, and spatially targeted interventions. By calibrating the blend of these instruments, today’s developers can reshape their economic geography. If they do this well, their growth will still be unbalanced, but their development will be inclusive.