Social Protection Digest - Issue #5

The Social Protection Digest is a quarterly compilation featuring practitioner guides, evidence-based studies, and policy and conceptual discussions. It is now also available directly on LinkedIn.

It showcases recent publications available on the socialprotection.org platform covering various topics, all meticulously curated by our team. We hope to provide practitioners, policymakers and researchers with easily digestible insights, guidance, and evidence from the field of social protection.

In this issue, we present the team's hand-picked selections from a wealth of content submitted to the platform between June and August 2024. To read the previous editions of the Social Protection Digest, click here.

1. Practitioners' Guide

This section features guidance notes and tools offering practical advice, frameworks and principles for implementing effective social protection programmes and systems.

Evidence Briefs on Cash Transfers: Overview and Ten Key Messages | World Bank Group

Cash transfers (CTs) can be designed for various purposes. This World Bank evidence note summarises 10 key messages, drawing from literature reviewed across five thematic briefs: benefit size, duration and frequency, transfer modality, payment mechanism, and gender.

1. Greater impacts imply greater investment, making cost key to programme design.
2. CTs outperform in-kind transfers in reducing poverty and improving health, nutrition, and food security.
3. High-value transfers are more impactful, but low-value transfers still work, especially when paired with complementary measures.
4. Accompanying measures help close gender gaps and empower women and girls by building skills and social capital.
5. Lump-sum payments boost long-term investments and asset accumulation.
6. Long-term transfers (2+ years) have larger impacts on children's health, education, and employment.
7. Digital payments are more cost-effective and may enhance programme outcomes.
8. CTs reduce gender gaps in human capital by increasing women's access to jobs, assets, and entrepreneurship.
9. Implementation matters, thus programme design should consider institutional capacity and structure.
10. Research gaps exist in comparing design features of different CTs, including cumulative low- vs. high-value transfers, and the impact of different values on education and empowerment.

How CTs are designed and implemented directly influences their outcomes, and this evidence notes highlights key considerations for policymakers and practitioners.  

Tool for Fiscal Space Analysis When Financing Social Protection | J.F. Pacheco-Jiménez

Social protection faces significant financing gaps worldwide, hindering of universal and adequate coverage. This report by ILO, UNICEF and the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, presents ISPA’s Fiscal Space Tool to help policymakers assess fiscal space and explore resource mobilisation options. See figure 1 for the tool's three-step process.

Step 1 covers context analysis across five modules: macroeconomic factors, labour market, demographic trends, social conditions, and fiscal balance, with gender and climate change included as data allows. Step 2 gathers information on institutional context, focusing on organisation of the social protection sector, existing programmes and legislation, and coverage and budget data. Finally, step 3 encompasses two key analyses:

• Analysing fiscal space options: 1) expand coverage and rates; 2) Increase tax revenue by expanding tax base and reducing evasion; 3) eliminate illicit financial flows; 4) reallocate expenditures for efficiency; 5) use reserves and foreign exchange for needs; 6) pursue low-cost borrowing and restructure debt; 7) secure international aid; 8) promote growth-focused, stable policies.
• Feasibility analysis in five core dimensions: 1) legal and ethical alignment; 2) political support; 3) institutional capacity for implementation; 4) societal norms and perceptions; and 5) economic sustainability and equity.

This tool helps policymakers to analyse their country-specific context and make informed decisions on fiscal space for social protection.  

Figure 1: Process for assessing fiscal space for social protection  

Artificial Intelligence in Social Security Organizations | ISSA

Social security institutions face growing service demands and limited resources. AI offers solutions to streamline operations, optimize resources, and improve service delivery. This ISSA study examines how AI can enhance efficiency and access to essential services, considering both technical and non-technical factors. Findings indicate that AI applications, such as machine learning, natural language processing, and big data analytics, have benefited social security institutions by:

• Strengthening administrative capacity through 1) improved accessibility and timely information in service delivery, 2) automated case management processing and grievance support, 3) outcome prediction, 4) risk identification and mitigation, and 5) fair program implementation.
• Enhancing service delivery with intelligent chatbots, improving user engagement, customer satisfaction, reduce phone congestion, simplifying benefit information access, and personalised advice.
• Increased use of machine learning to 1) detect health risks and improve workplace safety; 2) improve health services and well-being; 3) ensure proper resource use and mitigate fraud; and 4) streamline claims management processes.

AI can transform social security, but challenges like infrastructure gaps, skill shortages, and ethical concerns must be addressed. The study recommends international collaboration, responsible AI frameworks, and a focus on data quality. Future efforts should prioritize tailored AI solutions for each institution's specific needs.  

2. Evidence

This section highlights emerging evidence on social protection programmes and systems, unveiling innovative findings and shedding light on unexplored areas.

Active Labour Market Programs Improve Employment and Earnings of Young People | World Bank and ILO

Young people encounter challenges when seeking employment, being 3.5 times more likely to be unemployed than adults. This study reviews 220 evaluations of Active Labour Market Programmes (ALMPs) for youth, comparing their impact, design features, and cost-effectiveness.

The analysis reveals that ALMPs positively affect youth earnings and employment, particularly for vulnerable groups. In High-Income Countries (HICs), the impact on employment chances exceeds that on earnings, while the reverse is true in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The study suggests that in LMICs, ALMPs primarily help young people access better-paid, higher-quality jobs amid limited wage employment options.

The study identifies that effective programme types vary by country-income group. In LMICs, entrepreneurship and employment services are more effective in reducing unemployment, while subsidies and skills training work better in HICs. For the characteristics of the studies review, see Figure 2.

Regarding design features and implementation, programmes that involve employers and civil society have a greater impact than those run solely by the public sector. In LMICs, programmes combining multiple interventions and lasting longer are more effective, while focused approaches outperform in HICs.

The review calls for increased investment in ALMPs for youth, especially employment services and entrepreneurship in LMICs, and vocational training and subsidised employment in HICs. Understanding the barriers youth face is crucial for developing cost-effective interventions.

Figure 2: Characteristics of studies and interventions

Social Protection and Gender: Policy, Practice and Research | M. Hidrobo et al.

Women and girls face heightened risks of poverty and vulnerability, limiting their potential. This IFPRI review examines the discourse and research on social protection and gender in LMICs, focusing on how social assistance (SA), social care (SC), and social insurance (SI) affect women's health, economic empowerment, and violence.

The study finds a global shift in the gender narrative of social protection, with women now recognised as labour market contributors rather than just caregivers. However, few strategies explicitly aim to address gender inequality, often due to political economies that reflect gendered norms.

Research on social protection's impact on women has expanded over the last 15 years. Evidence shows that SA improves women's economic, health, empowerment, and violence outcomes, while emerging data link SC to better economic outcomes. However, broader evidence on SC and SI remains limited.

Promising design features include targeting women, keeping transfers under their control, linking programmes to quality services, and replacing conditionalities with soft nudges. Effective operational features involve addressing women's specific needs, such as providing daycare, lactation breaks, leadership opportunities, and using locally adapted approaches for programme sensitisation.

The review calls for more research on SC and SI's gender impacts, particularly in MENA and Asia-Pacific. It also highlights gaps in studying design components, improving gender-disaggregated data, assessing cost-effectiveness, and making the economic case for gender-sensitive designs.

Money Matters: Evidence from a Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme on Child Health | A. Mathur and G. Sen

Addressing high maternal and infant mortality rates remains a critical challenge in India, requiring substantial improvements in maternal and child health. This study evaluates the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY), a maternity benefit conditional CT launched in 2010 to improve maternal and child health outcomes.

Employing Difference-in-Differences (DID) matching estimation, the analysis reveals that the CT significantly reduced early neonatal mortality by 41%, perinatal mortality by 30%, and neonatal mortality by 25%, with stronger effects for children who received larger transfers. Regarding maternal health, there was a 10% reduction in moderate anemia, but no significant changes in severe or mild anemia. The study suggests that while the programme positively impacts child health outcomes, its effects on maternal health are less pronounced. This may be due to increased unpaid work burden on mothers and inadequate wage compensation, hindering their post-pregnancy recovery.

The authors underscore the significance of transfer size and indicate that the CTs themselves, rather than compliance with programme conditions, are the primary factor driving the observed impacts. Future research should focus on how CCT programmes can better influence household behaviours and healthcare utilisation, as well as determine the optimal transfer amounts to enhance programme effectiveness.

3. Policy and Theory

This section focuses on policy and conceptual discussions shaping the theoretical underpinnings of social protection strategies.

A Social protection ‘Risk deal’: the missing element for connecting money-in and money-out | Centre for Disaster Protection

As disasters affect larger populations and their impacts intensify, posing critical challenges, especially for LMICs, this paper from the Centre for Disaster Protection explores what is required for social protection systems to deliver timely, predictable, and cost-effective shock responses.

The paper recognises the critical role of social protection in shock response and highlights progress in pre-arranged international development financing. However, this approach remains nascent and current disaster risk finance (DRF) efforts primarily focus on preventing liquidity issues during disasters. See figure 3 for a typology for financing shock-responsive social protection.

The paper argues that it is essential to prioritise pre-arranged financing (PAF), aligning money-in (financing that triggers timely, transparent, and reliable release of funds) with money-out (systems enabling governments to use funds to deliver public services for anticipating, responding to, and recovering from crises). This would create a risk deal, i.e. a social contract built on reliable disaster-contingent public policies, including SRSP, clearly defined and communicated by the government and with sustainable political backing.

The authors call for international organisations to play an active role in creating more resilient disaster response systems through funding and policy instruments.

Figure 3: A typology of financing for shock-responsive social protection

Towards better social protection for more workers in Latin America | OECD

Informality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a persistent and structural challenge. This OECD paper analyses informality in LAC and emphasises the need to reform social protection systems to include informal workers and enhance effectiveness and fiscal sustainability.

Key factors contributing to informality include limited access to quality education, burdensome regulations, and weak enforcement of labour laws and tax policies. High social contributions and payroll taxes deter formal employment, while social assistance recipients risk losing benefits when moving to formal jobs. Additionally, LAC countries face low tax revenues, limiting their capacity to finance social protection.

The paper proposes two key reforms to improve social protection for all workers: 1) a basic set of benefits for all, and 2) subsidised social security contributions for low-income earners to encourage formal employment. It also suggests two specific reform models:

• Multi-Pillar Pension System including a non-contributory basic pillar providing a universal pension for low earners aged 65+, a contributory pillar for higher-income earners, and a voluntary individual savings pillar.
• Single CT for the poor: A tax-funded guaranteed minimum income for those under 65, based on means-testing. This transfer should include conditions for children's school enrolment and health check-ups and feature a graduation phase for transitioning beneficiaries to work.

To implement these reforms, LAC countries must undertake tax and spending reforms, including raising tax revenues and reducing social security contributions.  

4. See more

Curious to explore further? Click here to access the complete set of resources curated by the socialprotection.org team.

For more curated suggestions on reading materials and social protection news, check out:

• The Weekly Social Protection Links by Ugo Gentilini. A new issue of this newsletter is released every Friday, featuring a curated selection and discussion of social protection resources, ranging from scholarly articles to podcasts.
• The STAAR Evidence Digest is a monthly collection of articles compiled by the Technical Leadership Team at the STAAR Facility, related to social protection in crisis contexts and gender-responsive social protection.

This issue of the Social Protection Digest was written by Luiza Gewehr (Junior Knowledge Management Consultant), Carolina Lopes (Junior Knowledge Management Consultant), Gabriel Mazaro (Knowledge Management Associate), and Paulo Sodré (Knowledge Management Associate) and reviewed by Roberta Brito (Knowledge Management Coordinator) and João Pedro Bregolin Dytz (Research Associate).

Your questions and suggestions are very welcome: contact@socialpotection.org