The paper reviews current social protection thinking and practice, and sets out key trade-offs around policy and implementation issues. It presents a conceptual framework that unbundles different models of social protection, including contexts where (1) social protection systems are absent, (2) elements of such systems exist, (3) systems are emerging or (4) systems have been consolidated. For example, countries with higher national social protection capacities have more effective markets and administration, generally fund social protection from domestic sources and provide better preconditions for insurance and cash-based safety nets. In countries with lower capacities, social protection systems are generally short-term, externally-funded, and with a dominant role played by food-based safety nets. A research agenda is proposed to better test and tailor policies and interventions to context.
The appropriateness of transfers are often gauged in the abstract instead of being interpreted according to context-specific factors such as markets, implementation capacities, effectiveness, cost-efficiency, and beneficiary preferences. Social protection debates are seldom framed around the objectives to be pursued (for example, reducing chronic child malnutrition), while more experiemental evaluations of transfers’ effectiveness are needed.
Decision-makers face uneasy trade-offs in meeting short- and longer-term needs, particularly in the poorest countries. To inform evidence-based choices on social protection, four stylised models of social protection have been identified. These are based on national social protection capacities, the operational intensity of assistance that countries receive and the quantity and quality of partnerships available:
- Absence of formal social protection systems. These fragile, often post-crisis, countries are characterised by instability, poorly functioning markets, low-productivity agricultural systems, and lack of social services. National capacities on social protection are very low, operational intensity (relating to the amount and type of assistance countries receive) is high and mostly in the form of emergency food assistance, and partnerships may be limited.
- Elements of social protection systems. In chronically poor contexts prone to recurrent shocks and climate-change risks, initial social-protection programmes are present, but scattered, short-term, and limited in scale. In this case, capacities are still limited, and poverty is often structural and pervasive. While operational intensity is still high, there might be more of a case for using cash-based transfers, particularly as better partnership opportunities are available. Some insurance products, especially index-based, might also appear at this stage.
- Emerging social protection systems. Under this model, countries have established formal social-protection policies and strategies, and are seeking to institutionalise multi-annual programmes to improve coverage, co-ordination and flexibility. Countries have medium-level capacities, and there is an equal use of food and cash-based transfers, also as part of insurance schemes. Technical assistance and advice start playing a major role, and internationally and nationally funded programmes may co-exist.
- Consolidated social protection systems. This group includes countries that have institutionalised national social-protection systems , where markets and food and agricultural systems tend to function well, and the challenges are mostly in filling gaps. Social protection mostly involves cash-based transfers and insurance products.
One of the risks in current debates is that approaches which are appropriate in ‘consolidated’ systems are adopted in contexts with ‘absence’ or ‘elements’ of social protection. The framework above can help to tailor approaches more closely to the country context.
- Investments in capacity assessments and data collection are required to advance understanding of existing capacities in order to design social-protection systems accordingly.
- More research is needed into issues such as how flexible institutions are in responding to emergencies and the processes by which a genuine demand for social protection can be nurtured.
