SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION Research Papers

This study was commissioned by Practical Action Nepal Office, under the PRISM (Poverty Reduction of Informal Workers in Solid Waste Management Sector) project. Practical Action aims to reduce poverty in developing countries by introducing appropriate technologies for the communities, demonstrating results, sharing knowledge, building capacity to replicate and influencing others for scaling up. Through the PRISM Project, Practical Action aims to improve the living conditions of the informal waste workers (IWWs) and enhance the social protection of the vulnerable groups dependent on solid waste for their livelihoods in five municipalities of Kathmandu Valley. As a part of the PRISM Project, Practical Action commissioned two country studies of Social Protection for Informal Waste Workers. The first study was commissioned for Philippines and the second study for India. The studies were to be based solely on existing secondary sources . It is expected that the study of policies and practices in India and the lessons emerging from it would help Practical Action advocate better policies and practices in Nepal, thereby leading to better social protection for IWWs in Nepal.

Key messages • If appropriately designed, social protection can play a critical role in promoting women's empowerment and gender equality, including in the world of work. However, social protection policies and systems may also replicate and reinforce gender inequalities. Assumptions about gender roles that underpin policy design, and the way in which policy design interacts with existing inequalities in practice, can lead to gender gaps in provision and may reinforce gendered divisions of labour. • A 'future of work' lens highlights how, in fact, many of the challenges to gender-responsive social protection, today and looking forward, aren't new and are anchored in age-old issues such as the persistent undervaluation and unequal distribution of unpaid work between men and women. Recent and predicted labour market trends may compound these challenges or present new ones. They also present opportunities to tackle policy shortcomings and inequalities in social protection provision between women and men. • There is growing pressure on social protection systems to adjust to a changing world of work and to harness the opportunities presented. The time is ripe to build on learning to date to deliver social protection that adequately addresses gender-related contingencies over the course of the life cycle and, in conjunction with wider labour and social policy, gender inequalities in the world of work. • Social protection policy options set out in this paper provide examples of how this can be achieved in practice. They also highlight key issues in the pursuit of gender-responsive social protection in the context of the future of work. These include: the (re)framing of social protection and the definition of work, the role of contributory social protection, the design and effectiveness of social protection-services (including skills training) links, social protection and the changing demand for care, and the role of technological innovation.

- by Francesca Bastagli
- •
- Social Protection, Labour markets, Inequality, Gender inequality

This article makes an entrée into the social protection arena by exploring the political, technical, social, economic, legal and environmental dimensions of social protection using the ecology of human development as a foundation. As a point of departure, it argues that a clear understanding of the ‘total environment’ is critical in the design, formulation and implementation of social protection programmes. The method used for purposes of compiling this article is a desk study in which documents on social protection interventions used in Zimbabwe were reviewed. The key contribution of the article is a framework which may assist countries in the global south to understand social protection in general and to guide policy implementation and practice in particular. Some of the key lessons learnt from the Zimbabwean experience include the need to interrogate all interventions for feasibility, efficiency, effectiveness, dependency-reduction, appropriateness, sustain-ability, gender-sensitivity, incorruptibility, provision of exit mechanisms, administrative costs and adequacy of resources.

The findings of the study indicate that Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) has made considerable progress in encouraging institutional delivery among mothers and providing ante-natal care, post-natal care, and cash assistance. Majority of mothers utilize JSY services; 85% give birth in a health care facility, 65% receive ante-natal care, and 76% receive post- natal care. However the program benefits are not shared equally among eligible beneficiaries, especially disadvantaged are mothers from the Scheduled Caste (SC) group. In comparison to higher caste mothers, mothers from the SC group lack necessary information regarding JSY services, under-utilize available services and its benefits, and face caste-based discrimination when utilizing the services.

- by Nidhi S Sabharwal
- •
- Social Sciences, SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

This article examines the claims that Cash Transfers have positive effects for the mothers who receive the stipend. It argues that while there are some gains for women the degree to which these can be described as empowering is questionable. There is no evidence so far that women increase their economic autonomy or that the CT has positive effects on the redistribution of power and status within households. Moreover, these CT programmes confirm existing gendered divisions of labour and care and to that extent can entail opportunity costs for women by limiting their access to labour markets.

En América Latina la lucha contra la pobreza, que hacia mediados de los años noventa se caracterizaba por la implementación de programas ad hoc, financiados con recursos de cooperación internacional o préstamos otorgados por los bancos de desarrollo, hoy día -al menos en la mayoría de los países- se inscribe en políticas públicas asentadas en la aprobación de leyes nacionales y financiadas mayoritaria o totalmente con recursos del presupuesto nacional.
Estas nuevas políticas se fundamentan en algunos elementos comunes. El primero es la realización de programas orientados a transformar y detener la transmisión inter-generacional de la pobreza mediante el desarrollo de las capacidades humanas en las familias más vulnerable y, por esta vía, contribuir a consolidar la integración social y el acceso a una mejor calidad de vida.
Otro elemento novedoso es la introducción y la progresiva ampliación de esquemas no contributivos de pensiones, que otorgan la pensión a personas que no han aportado nunca o han realizado aportes parciales a algún sistema previsional.
La ampliación del acceso a los servicios de salud y educación constituye otro factor común a muchos países de América Latina.
El cuarto elemento está representado por la formalización de los trabajadores, con un aumento de la proporción de asalariados con contrato formal.
Además, es indudable que la protección social basada en un enfoque de derechos y con una lógica más universalista ha adquirido preeminencia en el discurso político y cómo horizonte ético y normativo en la gran mayoría de los países.
Sin la pretensión de agotar el debate, los artículos que se publican en este monográfico de la revista Ópera representan una contribución para profundizar el análisis sobre algunos de los temas antes mencionados.

- by Carlo Tassara
- •
- Latin American Studies, Poverty, Colombia, Social Protection

Presently, many countries in the Global South are increasingly recognising the critical role that social assistance programmes play in poverty reduction and the strengthening of the livelihoods of vulnerable groups. This trend has been gaining momentum in Africa, especially in the last decade, with many countries implementing social assistance programmes or social cash transfers to improve people's living standards. Despite this, there is still a lack of information and evidence on the way in which these programmes are being rolled out in Africa and particularly in southern Africa. In this article, we discuss social assistance programmes in three southern African countries, namely, Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland), South Africa and Zambia. We attempt to fill the said gap by providing an account of social assistance programmes in the three countries. We examine the way in which national institutions and systems are evolving in response to the provision of social assistance to the citizens of Eswatini, South Africa and Zambia. Through an exploratory study and review of secondary data, we attempt to tease out the key drivers of social assistance programmes in the three countries. Some suggestions are made for improving the social assistance in the three countries.

This document analyses linkages and complementarities between social protection and nutrition, laying out the common ground between the two. It identifies general principles which should guide the design and implementation of social protection interventions in order to maximize their positive impact on nutrition. Common social protection instruments are analysed for their specific linkages with nutrition and concrete suggestions are made on how to best use them in order to achieve improved nutrition.

- by Savina Tessitore and +1
- •
- Nutrition, Social Protection, Food and Nutrition, Social Protection; Food Security

This note discusses two of the Philippines' biggest social assistance programs—the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, the government's first conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, and the rice subsidy program of the National Food Authority (NFA), one of the country's long-standing food-based social assistance programs—with a focus on targeting efficiency and the benefits to the poor. The goal of the CCT program, which has an explicit poverty targeting mechanism embedded in the program, is to provide short-term cash assistance to poor households while helping to strengthen human capital of their children with the long-run vision of breaking the cycle of poverty. The goal of rice subsidy program is to ensure that low-priced rice is available in the markets to all consumers. Using benefit incidence analysis on the latest official household surveys of 2009, results suggest that both programs benefit poorest households the most. This has implications for the CCT program given the program was only launched with limited coverage in 2008. Despite having been implemented for one year as captured by the data, the program had already reached 12.4 percent of poor households in 2009. Moreover, about 71 percent of its beneficiaries in 2009 belonged to the poorest 20 percent of the population and accounted for 74 percent of total program benefits. These results suggest that the Philippine CCT program has achieved better targeting outcomes than similar programs of other countries in East Asia and Pacific as well as in Latin America where CCT programs started decades ago. Meanwhile, the universal rice subsidy program was also progressive despite not being explicitly targeted to the poor. In 2009, the program reached 47.7 percent of poor households after nearly fifty years of implementation. Considering both direct and indirect costs to value the total amount of assistance delivered by Pantawid Pamilya and the rice subsidy program, beneficiaries receive about the same benefit from both programs as a share of their reported incomes. However, direct benefits from the Pantawid Pamilya represents a higher share of beneficiary households' reported income (16 percent) compared to the rice subsidy program (1.4 percent). This reflects the high cost of administering the rice subsidy program compared to the CCT. On average, the government spends Php 6.84 for every Php1.00 of direct assistance delivered through the universal rice subsidy program while it only spends 15 centavos through the CCT program. As almost any other program, the universal rice subsidy program and the Pantawid Pamilya do not target the poor perfectly– the former by design and the latter due to errors in targeting or implementation. The share of total program benefits that went to the non-poor is especially high for the rice subsidy program at 58 percent, twice that of the Pantawid Pamilya (29 percent). There is further scope for both programs to reach more poor Filipinos. While the CCT program will never be able to reach 100 percent of the poor by design, coverage is expected to increase in the coming years as the program continues to expand and utilize the national household targeting system. The rice subsidy program can improve efficiency in reaching the poor by adopting an explicit targeting criterion.

This thesis seeks to convey the social rationale and experience of Familias en Acción, a major conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme in Colombia, 2000-2013. Combining actor-network theory and participant-action research, it identifies key controversies surrounding this particular CCT in the context of the prevalence of the CCT genre in social protection systems across Latin America and beyond. I analyse my material in terms of techniques and discourses around information, money/finance, women’s empowerment, and changing modes of politics, with the more theoretical level of the account supported by a range of ethnographic material and 58+ interviews with designers, functionaries, participants and observers of this social policy as it played out in the Montes de María region and in the country’s capital, Bogotá. These substantive and methodological contributions are regarded as having a wider purpose too, as I try to pursue the idea of sociology as map-making, thinking of this as what happens when the quest for social explanation has to flex in the face of situational and political complexity. Overall, the thesis argues that CCTs need to be grasped in terms of being traversed by the imperative of ‘action at a distance’. This can rightly, in part, be regarded as a matter of the logic and pervasiveness of contemporary neo-liberalism, but the thesis attempts to promote and explore a more pluralistic or inclusive approach to the politics of the social.

This document outlines the current social protection in Zambia and lays a platform that enhances future prospects. Social protection in the informal sector employment not only lacks in Zambia but in other regions.
Legal frame work weaknesses are also alluded to and may need further research and illustrations by other researchers in the future.

- by Yakamina Mumbai
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- SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

Today’s great transformation – considered as second great transformation – in political, economic and
social spheres with neoliberal ideas can be explained with the clash of international actors between disembedding and re-embedding of the market. With the change from market correcting to market confirming
ideas, the values and norms of society about social responsibilities have been transformed due to certain
policies pursued by neoliberal logic. The process has begun with flexible production and continued
through expanding flexible social protection (flexicurity) mechanisms. These mechanisms have reached the individuals with the tool of active social policies, which promote change in the perception of social responsibilities spreading the ideas of individualization, self-reliance, self-responsibility, flexibility, minimal state, and merit-based social stratification in order to legitimize these policies in the eyes of beholders.
The Foucauldian explanation of conduct of conduct and neoliberal governmentality offer a great insight to
understand the change in the perception of social responsibilities of the recipients of active social policies.
The production of neoliberal subjects through neoliberal project converts individuals’ thoughts, beliefs,
attitudes and their perceptions.
This research asks whether the efforts of promoting this type of conception of social responsibilities
affect its perception by the individuals; whether they adapt or reject this imposition. These questions are
scrutinized focusing on the impact power of the European Union. Therefore, how the recipients of active social policies perceive social responsibilities is examined comparatively in one member state and one candidate country of the European Union. The phenomenological approach is applied through realizing 120 semi-structured face-to-face interviews held in 2018 with unemployed people who are participating in one of the active social policies in Community of Madrid and Basque Country in Spain; Ankara and Gaziantep in Turkey. The aim of this comparative analysis is to indicate how the individuals, from different socio-cultural structures, exposed to similar active social policies perceive the social responsibilities in
Spain and Turkey.

- by Bilge Filiz
- •
- Social Protection, Turkey, Spain, SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

The works collected in this publication contribute to a better understanding of the scope and limitations of social protection policies and programmes in the Latin America and the Caribbean and offer the reader access to the vast corpus of knowledge the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has produced on the topic of social protection between 2006 and 2019, covering everything from conceptual considerations to the emerging challenges and current debates and proposals for social protection policy in region.

Ethiopia has made a strong commitment to strengthen its social protection system. However, resource constraints pose significant challenges in seeking to meet the basic needs of all people. We employ a qualitative research design to identify issues of policy incoherence, within the social protection policy and in relation to other sectoral policies. Policy incoherence has high costs. Strengthening policy coherence is necessary to improve the utilization of limited resources and set a pathway through which the government can ensure no one is left behind. We also present examples of implementation coherence, which provide insight into viable means through which improved policy coherence might be pursued.

In Zambia, 83% of the labour force is in the informal sector leaving 17% in the formal sector. This implies that only the formal sector has access to social protection. Social protection is capable of reducing poverty and vulnerability. The key question is how can it be extended to the informal sector? Therefore, this paper brings out some evidence of the situation of informal sector workers in Zambia in order to understand what best of social protection would be appropriate for this sector.

- by Yvonne Nawila Mwale
- •
- SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

This document presents the findings of the International Seminar “Public Policies for Equality: Towards Universal Social Protection Systems”, which took place in Montevideo, Uruguay on December 4-5, 2013. The goal of the seminar was to foster the debate on and the construction of universal social protection systems in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean; disseminate the good practices currently being applied in those countries and in Norway; and discuss the main challenges faced by social protection.

A partir d’une conceptualisation articulant ensemble les trois principes polanyiens d’intégration sociale (marché, redistribution, réciprocité), la protection sociale apparaît comme une médiation qui solidarise la société et assure le lien social contre les risques de sa dissolution. Sur cette base, j’envisagerai le futur de la
protection sociale en le replaçant dans la totalité de l’environnement économique, social et politique actuel qui peut être caractérisé par trois grands types de tendances : les tendances endogènes au système de protection sociale lui-même, les tendances à la mondialisation des économies, enfin les tendances à la recomposition de la carte des sociétés politiques (par désagrégation ou création d’unions interétatiques régionales comme dans le cas de l’européanisation). Un tel cadrage nécessite de repartir du passé, puis de faire le constat du
présent, avant d’en arriver à un futur que la crise mondiale structurelle qui s’est fait jour en 2007 conduit à reconsidérer.

Examining who the beneficiaries are of the Integrated Child Development Services programme, an aspect that has been neglected, this paper presents econometric estimates regarding the relative strength of personal and household circumstances in determining the likelihood of utilising the programme’s services. These estimates suggest that inter-group differences in utilisation rates have less to do with characteristics and much more to do with group identity. The paper also suggests a trade-off between quality and utilisation by hypothesising that the poor quality of services leads upper-caste mothers to exit the ICDS market and seek these services elsewhere.

- by Vani K Borooah and +1
- •
- SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

By mainstreaming BRAC's Graduation Approach, social protection systems can fulfil protective and preventive functions as well as maximize their promotive and transformative potential in order to lift people out of poverty in a sustained way at scale. The Operational Framework demonstrates how Graduation can progressively transition the ultra poor to positions of increased resilience and sustainable livelihoods, and overtime break the intergenerational transmission of poverty from parents to their children. While every context will require a tailored approach, each Graduation design by BRAC is an adaptation of the Framework anchored within a theory of change that complements national social protection strategies and strengthens the enabling environment.

This Policy Note presents the potential poverty impacts of the Philippine conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) using simple analytical tools and the government’s largest database of poor households to date, the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR). In doing so, the Note also aims to encourage policy-makers and researchers to
not only use the NHTS-PR for its intended purpose, that is, for objective targeting of social assistance programs, but also for analysis to maximize the utility of information contained in the database. The Note finds that the Pantawid Pamilya can reduce poverty incidence among beneficiaries by up to 6.2 percentage points. In program areas, it can reduce poverty incidence by 2.6 percentage points and inequality by 6.6 percent. Increasing compliance of existing beneficiaries will enhance the poverty-reducing impacts of the Pantawid Pamilya. Expanding program coverage will produce higher impacts as long as targeting and program
implementation remains properly managed.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the policies aimed at reducing the impact of the crisis caused by the COVID-outbreak in two subnational governments in Mexico, that is of Baja California (northern border) and Chiapas (southern border). Based on the literature on crisis management and through comparative analysis, actions, programs and policies implemented by subnational governments specifically those aimed at the migrant population during the pandemic are shown. The text contributes to the discussion on crisis management and migration in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. It concludes that the type of crisis, the political-administrative characteristics, as well as the historical trajectories and coordination with the federal strategy influence the implementation of actions aimed at reducing the impact of the crisis in a migration context.
Keywords: crisis management, transboundary crisis, migrations, social security, COVID-19.

- by Magdalena Sepulveda
- •
- Human Rights, Poverty, SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

In this paper I present the state of formal social protection in Zambia with bias towards non- contributory social protection. in the beginning of the paper, I will talk very briefly about contributory social protection. Then I will focus throughout the whole paper on non-contributory social protection. To provide comprehensive and detailed information about this type of social protection, I will bring out different government non-contributory social protection programmes by showing the social risks they address, the extent of their coverage, their performance and challenges faced. After this, I will provide the lessons of experience to be learnt from the state of social protection in Zambia. This will form the summary and conclusion of the paper.

- by Isaac Kabelenga
- •
- SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

En France, le temps n’est certes pas celui de l’âge d’or
de la protection sociale. Pourtant, l’on n’y assiste pas à
la destruction « néo-libérale » que certains prévoient
répétitivement. Pas plus que l’on n’assiste à une
convergence de tous les systèmes vers la privatisation,
le ciblage sur les pauvres, le workfare, etc. Notre
analyse de l’évolution en France ne montre aucune
réalisation significative (autre que rhétorique) de tels
développements « à l’anglo-saxonne ». La protection
sociale française a certes connu de très nombreuses et
spectaculaires adaptations dans les dernières trente
années au point que le système français apparaît
comme « nouveau ». Mais ces changements
n’équivalent nullement à une désagrégation du système.
De nouveaux principes se sont introduits (comme
l’activation des politiques, l’incitation des personnes), qui
peuvent bien correspondre aux formes politiques
libérales, mais ils ne sont pas les seuls, loin s’en faut, et
ils trouvent en France un contenu particulier.

- by Bruno Théret
- •
- French Studies, Welfare State, Social Protection, French Politics

Dr. Magdalena Sepulveda of Chile has worked for the past four years for the United Nations Human Rights Council as Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. In its resolution 8/11 (2008), the UN Human Rights Council requested that she examine the relationship between extreme poverty and the enjoyment of human rights, paying particular attention to the situation of vulnerable groups and the impact of discrimination.The Special Rapporteur set out to elaborate and promote a human rights framework for social protection, identifying best practices and disseminating lessons learned. Her approach involves the application of the central human rights principles of the human rights framework - equality and non-discrimination (including accessibility, acceptability, affordability and the incorporation of the gender perspective), participation, transparency and accountability - to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of social protection systems.In this publicatio...

- by Magdalena Sepulveda
- •
- Human Rights, Poverty, SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

В статье рассматриваются проблемы внедрения технологий связи с общественностью в соцозащитных учреждениях. Определены задачи, субъекты, виды и формы технологий связей с общественностью для социозащитных учрежде-ний, с указанием недостатка соответствующих квалифицированных специалистов в данной области. Приводятся результаты исследования развития технологий связей с общественностью в учреждениях Смоленского региона. На основании изучения отзывов получателей социальных услуг учреждений сферы социального обслуживания и занятости населения, а также оценки эффективности их сайтов, сделаны выводы о степени функциональности, доступности и удобства использования PR-технологий исследуемых учреждений, предлагаются рекомендации по их совершенствованию. Также приводятся данные о внедрении разработанной автором усовершенствованной модели Интернет-технологий предоставления социальных услуг с учётом выявленных особенностей, недостатков и пожеланий.
The article deals with the problems of introducing PR technologies in social protection institutions. The tasks, subjects, types and forms of PR technologies for social protection institutions are identified, indi-cating the lack of appropriate qualified specialists in this field. The results of research on the development of PR technologies in the institutions of the Smolensk region are presented. Based on the study of the reviews of recipients of social services of institutions in the sphere of social services and employment of the population, as well as an assessment of the effectiveness of their sites, conclusions were drawn about the degree of functionality, accessibility and ease of use of PR-technologies of the studied institutions, recommendations for their improvement are offered. It also provides data on the implementation of an improved model of Internet technologies for the provision of social services developed by the author, taking into account the identified features, shortcomings and wishes.

Abstract
The current economic situation of the country has left an indelible mark in the progress of persons with disabilities most especially among children with speech and hearing disabilities in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the effects of such economic crises-poverty have a greater impact on children with speech and hearing disabilities that experiences communicative difficulties in expressing their needs. Hence, their disabling condition forces them to live below poverty line. Although, government over the years have pronounced social protection policies to cater for the poor and needy but the effects of such policies on the population of children with speech and hearing disabilities who lives in poverty is still under questions. At present, children with speech and hearing disabilities still litters the public places and various urban streets begging for alms to survive because of neglects from government and parents who themselves are still striving to survive and could not afford to efficiently manage their children with these conditions. Based on this, the study examined the issues of childhood poverty and social protection policies in Nigeria as it affects children with speech and hearing disabilities in Nigeria. While there are some obvious lapses on the part of the policy makers the study recommended that government should consider as important better redistribution and restructuring of economic resources and income so as to narrow the wide margin between the rich and the poor in Nigeria because it would go a long way to prevent war, terrorism, outbreak of diseases, communal crises among others events that could cause childhood disabilities and downtrodden of the economy, devastating catastrophe of poverty and hunger.
Keywords: Childhood poverty, social protection policy, speech and hearing disabilities, poverty

- by Morufat olakojo and +1
- •
- SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION, Social protection policy

This research work aim to accomplish an empirical study on the Employment Generation Program for the Poorest (EGPP) scheme of Bangladesh. The objective of this study is to find out whether the EGPP program is promoting the livelihood of the poor people or it remains the same as before. A quantitative approach is applied here as research methods, where data is collected from the primary sources through interview technique and KII. The findings reveal that the purchase power of EGPP beneficiaries has significantly changed and food intake frequency has been increased. It is found that before involvement in EGPP 67.5% of interviewees could manage to have meal twice in a day and 25% could have once in a day. After participation in EGPP the scenario has changed; the percentage of people those could manage to have meal once in a day has gone off and people who could have meal twice in a day reduced to 7.5% but sudden change due to increase of purchase capability above 92.5% people are able to have meal three times in a day. A significant improvement is also found in the case of items of food intake, diversification in food items, quality of food intake, quantity of food intake. Besides, it revealed that social status or social acceptance of the poor peoples of the EGPP recipients elevated. Most of the respondents opined positively regarding the improvement of employment scope in the lean season through EGPP program.

APPROACH AND IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY (e.g., consider infrastructure, inclusivity, and sustainability elements) FINANCIAL & RESOURCE CONSIDERATIONS STAKEHOLDERS: Government and Ministry of Finance (Farinda); informal workers, labour organizations, NGOs, foreign investors, social security agencies and private businesses. PARTNERS: Cross-region partnership with France and Germany who've France, & Germany as they've led the European continent to a fair and secure system. This would assist in enhancing awareness of economic, social and sustainable policies in Farinda. KEY SUCCESS METRICS WHAT ARE YOUR NEXT STEPS? (establish a 60-90 day work-plan) High poverty rate and exacerbated social gap between men and women in Farinda (based in Europe) due to a fragile social protection system.

- by OMATULE U STEPHEN
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- Informal Economy, SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

This article examines the evolution of social security research from a theoretical and empirical perspective. This is done through an extensive review and analysis of publications from the Journal of International Social Security Review published by Wiley within a 50-year period (1967-2017). It was observed that at a different period in time, the social security research focused on different national and international issues that invoked different social welfare programs and pension systems approach (public or private) to facilitate the explanation of its final socio-economic impact into different social groups in the same country or region respectively.

- by Melisew Dejene Lemma
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- Business, Sociology, African Studies, Policy Analysis/Policy Studies

Although there is a substantial body of literature on human wellbeing, there is no universally agreed upon meaning and understanding of the concept. This paper explores the meanings and understandings Somali refugees in Kampala, Uganda attach to the concept. Drawing on 14 in-depth individual interviews and seven focus group discussions with 70 Somali refugee study participants in Kisenyi, I argue that wellbeing is mainly understood in terms of having access to objective elements that result in having a good or comfortable life. The objective elements can be seen to represent human needs with respect to Doyal and Gough's theory of human need. These objective elements were discussed as prerequisites for having a good life. They include peace and security, health, education, employment and housing. Adequate access to these objective elements is perceived as fundamentally important in promoting and guaranteeing human wellbeing. Word Count: (6,708 words)

This article assesses the potential of cash transfer programmes to contribute to adaptation goals in
developing countries. It argues that cash transfers are likely to contribute to adaptive capacity by (1) meeting basic
needs; (2) helping the poor respond to climate-related shocks; (3) helping vulnerable households to manage risk
and consider investment innovations that increase their adaptive capacity; (4) transferring money for investment
in long-term adaptive capacity development; and (5) facilitating mobility and livelihood transitions. While the
article acknowledges that cash transfers cannot address all areas of adaptation, these transfers may be a
prerequisite for further adaptation to be equitable and effective. When compared with other adaptation options,
cash transfers fare well as they are supported by a substantial evidence base, do not require much climate-related
information, have a demonstrated potential for scaling up and are likely to gain local acceptance.

- by Smita Yadav
- •
- Russian Studies, Socialist Economics, Social Capital, Post-Soviet Regimes

This study contributes to expanding the knowledge of the health of older persons living in Indonesia, a country with limited welfare benefits. The research employs a variable, ‘self-rated health’ (SRH), to investigate socio-cultural factors linked to the health of older Indonesians. The data presented in this study are based on fieldwork collected using a mixed-method approach. Sex-difference in SRH in older age is shown to be predominantly a result of enduring inequalities across the life course, manifested in cultural practices, education, employment and programs for health. An older person’s status within the family is a significant determinant of SRH, but the direction of the relationship depends on the sex and ethnicity of the person. Other variables related to SRH are age, lifestyle, education, residential area and intergenerational transfers.

- by Francesca Bastagli
- •
- Social Protection, Labour markets, Inequality, Gender inequality

This article is aimed at raising awareness about the existence of political abuse among the old people in Zambia. It is also aimed at extending literature on elder abuse. The article which is based on empirical evidence from Kalulu Rural District of Zambia argues that elder abuse does not only take place through physical, financial/material, emotional/psychological, and sexual abuses of the older people or through neglect as widely reported in the available literature on elder abuse, but also takes place politically. The article further argues that since ageing is a normal process of human life which every human being expects to go through, and given the fact that the world is moving towards population ageing, evidence of political abuse among some old people in Kalulu should be taken seriously and immediate concerted efforts should be put in place to stop it. This is because it has serious negative implications on the national development of Zambia and the tenets of democracy that the people of Zambia and the whole world are trying to promote. The causes of political abuse in Kalulu, policy implications on how to address political abuse in Kalulu as well as implications for future research are also provided.

- by ISAAC KABELENGA
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- Social Policy, Elder Abuse And Neglect, Sociology of Ageing, Rural Develoment

This is a working draft/background paper as part of developing an integrated strategy for the Mauritius Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare. It was meant to underpin the strategic framework for programme-based budgets.The strategy was not endorsed after a change of government in 2014. The programme-based budget reform was also abandoned. Mauritius reverted to input-based budgeting. It is not part of the Open Budget Partnership.

SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION Research Papers (original) (raw)