This paper suggests that social protection programming should be expanded to address structural as well as other types of vulnerability. It proposes an approach involving four (potentially overlapping) categories of instruments: provision measures, which provide relief from deprivation; preventive measures, which attempt to prevent deprivation; promotive measures, which aim to enhance incomes and capabilities; and transformative measures, which seek to address concerns of social justice and exclusion. This approach would enable the identification of powerful synergies between the ‘economic’ (provision, prevention, promotion) and ‘social’ (transformation) functions performed by several social protection measures.
Income, consumption and asset-based understandings unpin the majority of government and donor approaches to vulnerability. The dominant social protection policy agenda is almost exclusively concerned with measures and programmes that stabilise expectations of risk, without affecting the fundamental causes of vulnerability. Most current social protection interventions involve food or cash transfers. Absent from this agenda are the social risks that contribute to poverty and vulnerability. If vulnerability were to be seen within the socio-political context, development policy would focus on how to transform this context to minimise risk for vulnerable groups.
A transformative social protection approach moves well beyond food and cash transfers, addressing fundamental social justice and exclusion issues. ‘Transformative’ refers to the pursuit of policies that integrate individuals equally into society, allowing everyone to take advantage of the benefits of growth, and enabling excluded or marginalised groups to claim their rights. Thus transformative social protection seeks to redress unequal power relations, to reduce dependency and to enable poor people to achieve sustainable livelihoods. In this transformative approach:
- Provision measures provide relief from deprivation. They include social assistance for the chronically poor, targeted resource transfers such as disability benefits, single-parent grants and social pensions and services providing special care.
- Preventive measures deal directly with poverty alleviation. They include social insurance for economically vulnerable groups and informal mechanisms such as savings clubs and funeral societies.
- Promotive measures aim to boost real incomes and capabilities through livelihood-enhancing programmes. Examples include microcredit for small enterprises and public works projects that transfer food rations or cash wages while also building economic infrastructure.
- Transformative measures address concerns of social justice and exclusion, such as the exploitation of workers or discrimination against ethnic minorities. These interventions include collective action for workers’ rights and regulatory changes to protect socially vulnerable groups, such as the disabled and victims of domestic violence.
If carefully selected to match the nature of vulnerability, social protection mechanisms can be both socially transformative and fiscally affordable – sensitisation campaigns cost much less than cash transfer programmes – while contributing to pro-poor economic growth and improved social equity. The transformative approach to social protection establishes a more positive and proactive role for social protection that extends its scope beyond stigmatising social safety nets. It addresses social injustice that arises from structural inequalities and abuses of power, helping beneficiaries to achieve empowerment, equity and the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights.
Note: An earlier version of this article can be found as a Working Paper at http://www.ids.ac.uk/download.cfm?file=wp232.pdf
