The rapid rise of social protection can be considered a ‘quiet revolution’. How has this happened and what is its future potential? This paper traces the contours of social protection, its diversity and the factors that constrain its expansion. It argues for the energetic continuation of this revolution to improve the prospects of the world’s poor people and to strengthen national and international solidarity and security. Researchers and policymakers need to find ways of: (1) scaling up social protection coverage in low-income countries without turning it into an donor development fad which is later cast aside; and (2) extending social protection into fragile states and difficult environments.
Social protection has untapped potential. It may be able to meet the immediate needs of people living in fragile states whilst at the same time supporting peace-building efforts and the demobilisation of militias, and contributing to improved prospects for national and international security and future growth.
In the last decade, social protection has become one of the three main elements of development, with growth and human development. Its conceptual basis has been clarified and extended, from a focus on risk to a broader focus on basic needs and capabilities. This is also reflected in practice, with a rapid scaling up of programmes and policies that combine income transfers with basic services, employment guarantees or asset building.
- Key global drivers behind the rise of social protection include: the impact of crises and adjustment on poverty and vulnerability, the ineffectiveness of short-term discretionary safety nets, and growing awareness that in a globalised world large costs arise from the absence of social protection.
- To finance social protection, most low-income countries require some combination of the following: increased tax collection efficiency; expenditure switched from poorly performing poverty budget allocations; and increased development assistance.
- Delivery capacity limitations are a major challenge to the extension of social protection. These involve the capacity to: study, measure, and analyse poverty and vulnerability; design and implement appropriate policies; and deliver and evaluate programmes.
- Social protection measures in developing countries are diverse, having evolved out of specific national contexts.
- Social protection will follow a range of pathways in different regions, depending on the nature of existing institutions (determining path dependence), the level of economic development (defining the fiscal space), and the features of social and economic transformation (determining the interactions between longer-term trends and short-term fractures).
Three factors will largely determine the future course of social protection in developing countries: the role of external actors, the bottlenecks of sustainable finance and delivery capacity, and politics. It is important to:
- Consolidate broad partnerships in which external actors support national social protection strategies led and managed by national government agencies.
- Find innovative ways of reducing medium- and longer-term financing constraints, which involves reinforcing revenue mobilisation.
- Build capacity for integration among poverty researchers, policy analysts, political scientists, financial experts, programme managers, information systems analysts and developers, accountants, and field officers.
- Strengthen demand for social protection: To introduce social protection initiatives factors exogenous to the domestic political system are important, such as major disasters or crises, or intervention by donors and NGOs. Once social protection is on the political agenda, a political constituency supporting social protection priorities is essential to securing sustainability.
- Focus on two knowledge frontiers: (1) finding ways of scaling up successful social protection programmes to the national level in low-income countries, which is already being prioritised and should continue; and (2) creating knowledge about social protection programmes in fragile states and difficult environments through pilot programmes, which has been somewhat neglected.
