A social protection system, in an international development context, is broadly understood to be an integrated national portfolio of interventions which aims to serve four basic functions for households and individuals: protection of a minimum standard of living, prevention of deprivation through increasing resilience to shocks, and promotion of sustainable livelihood improvements. At a societal…» more
Social protection
Impacts of social protection programmes on children
The impact of social protection on children is under-researched. Key findings and insights from the literature include: Multidimensional social protection systems have had positive impacts on addressing economic and human development, multiple vulnerabilities, and both social and economic inequities. Child-sensitive social protection programmes are more intentionally ...» more
Building social cohesion in post-conflict situations
The approaches covered in this report include community-driven development, job creation, social protection and education. Whilst in theory there are strong links between these and social cohesion, there is very little rigorous empirical evidence to verify these links. More specifically, the literature highlights that: Community-driven development (CDD) programmes promote ...» more
Perceptions of different modalities of social assistance in the Levant
Major international aid actors worldwide have been moving away from in-kind food aid and turning towards food vouchers and cash transfers. International agencies working in the Levant – i.e. the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria – have tried to reconcile this general shift with the historical, political and social specificities of social ...» more
Evidence on the comparative cost efficiency and effectiveness of varying social assistance modalities
There is limited literature that rigorously measures cost efficiency of programme modalities, or that compares modalities. The key points raised in the literature include the following: Transfer appropriateness is context-specific and determined by multiple factors including programme objectives Cash transfers are generally found to be the least-cost modality – which ...» more
Impact of cash and asset transfers on child and forced marriage
There are very few programmes that have directly tried to tackle forced and early marriage through cash or asset transfers. Of the programmes that have, many are fairly recent or are small-scale, making it difficult to assess long term impacts or draw lessons (Sinha and Young 2009). Some cash and asset transfer programmes have indirectly impacted on child and forced marriage ...» more
What is social protection?
Concepts and definitions Social protection is concerned with protecting and helping those who are poor and vulnerable, such as children, women, older people, people living with disabilities, the displaced, the unemployed, and the sick. There are ongoing debates about which interventions constitute social protection, and which category they fit under, as social protection ...» more
Design and implementation
This section provides links to key manuals, guidance and other practical resources. General manuals Devereux, S. (2008). Innovations in the Design and Delivery of Social Transfers: Lessons Learned from Malawi. IDS and Concern Worldwide. See full text Grosh, M., del Ninno, C., Tesliuc, E. & Ouerghi, A. (2008). For Protection and Promotion: The Design and Implementation ...» more
Vulnerable groups: needs and challenges
Women and girls It is often women who require social protection interventions, as they are disproportionately vulnerable due to lack of capital, high wage differentials and gendered work norms, bearing the responsibility for childcare, and exclusion from basic services. Social assistance programmes, particularly conditional cash transfers, are often aimed at women as the ...» more
Policy objectives and evidence of impacts
Social protection can have a wide range of objectives and impacts, from food security, access to services, gender equality, and state-building, to social transformation. The emphasis in developing countries has been on poverty and vulnerability reduction, and human development, for which there is good evidence. There is less evidence on longer-term developmental impacts such as ...» more
Global issues and debates
Page contents Coverage, scale and systems Financing and affordability Political economy Targeting Conditionalities Shocks and risks Fragile and conflict-affected states State-building Coverage, scale and systems The last 15 years have seen a huge increase in social protection programmes, both the number of programmes and number of countries which have ...» more
Types of social protection
Social assistance Social assistance is direct, regular and predictable cash or in-kind resources transfers to poor and vulnerable individuals or households (Arnold et al., 2011: 91). It is usually provided by the state and financed by national taxes (Barrientos, 2010). Support from donors is also important in lower income contexts. Transfers are non-contributory, i.e. the full ...» more
Social policy
The development of social policy as a discipline is associated with the emergence of welfare states in European countries. This reading guide provides the user with some key texts and narrative. The development of European countries involved the progressive extension of rights, civil rights in the 18th century, political rights in the 19th century, and…» more
Social protection Management Information Systems (MIS)
MIS are useful because integrated data management of social protection programmes can lead to more equitable distribution of resources; provide oversight of multiple schemes; establish links with other services; and increase efficiency through economies of scale (Barca & Chirchir, 2014). There is a considerable literature on policy guidance, design guidelines, and a general ...» more
Social protection accountability
Accountability and good governance are strong themes of development interventions in general, but have yet to be applied systematically to social protection programmes. Social assistance accountability mechanisms usually focus on two main areas: (i) the flow of information and (ii) the flow of funds (Bassett et al., 2012). Most programmes have implemented a series of audits, ...» more
Capacity building for social protection
Research for this rapid literature review was unable to find specific material on impacts and lessons for supporting sustainable government capacity building of the social protection sector in general. There is, however, general guidance material on social protection, and lessons and impacts from specific programmes and projects. Consequently this report identifies ...» more
Social protection, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction
This rapid literature review presents and synthesises the conceptual underpinnings and evidence on the relationship between social protection, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Social protection instruments have been shown to be effective mechanisms for coping with shocks. The recent growth of social protection systems has shown that having systems in ...» more
Social protection programmes for people with disabilities
This mapping report gives an overview of nine social protection programmes for people with disabilities. The programmes are all run by governments of low income or lower middle income states in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Many of the programmes have been established within the last decade, for example in Uganda, Kenya and Indonesia, and may still be in trial and error mode. ...» more
Social protection programmes supporting women survivors of domestic violence
Few cash transfer programmes appear to specifically target women survivors of domestic violence. As a result this paper takes a broad understanding of social protection. The most effective programmes appear to combine both prevention and response measures. Many of the programmes described below are ‘transformative social protection’, as they aim to change lives through ...» more
Evidence of impact of emergency cash transfers on gender and protection
Key messages: The major trends and gaps in the evidence in this report are: On the whole, ‘gender’ is used to refer to women. More recent papers include more analysis of how CTs impact men, especially on if they find it disempowering for women to be favoured as beneficiaries. Gender analysis is not deeply ingrained into emergency CT programme evaluation. Many papers include a ...» more
