IDS Bulletin

Reimagining Social Protection

Stephen Devereux — 2024-10-25

Social protection features in numerous country policies and development agency strategies, as well as in several Sustainable Development Goals. However, following more than two decades of considerable expansion in policies, programmes, and research, the sector finds itself at a crossroads. Social protection is currently positioned in a global setting characterised by a range of emerging and intensifying challenges and uncertainties, including post-Covid-19 pandemic recovery; the cost-of-living crisis; unprecedented climate change; and rising numbers of protracted wars and political instability, leading to mass displacement and migration.

Drawing key insights and lessons from an international conference on ‘Reimagining Social Protection in a Time of Global Uncertainty’, hosted by the Institute of Development Studies in September 2023, the articles in this issue of the IDS Bulletin reflect on the role social protection plays in a shifting, uncertain, and volatile global context.

In particular, the articles focus on three broad themes that are increasingly defining the trajectory of social protection policy, programming, and research: the politics of social protection policy processes; social protection in crisis settings; and inclusive and innovative social protection.

Social protection is firmly on the agenda in most low- and middle-income countries. The articles in this collection argue for the need to reimagine the scope and ambition of social protection in light of multiple threats. The challenge that remains for social protection advocates is to support governments and civil society actors to move towards nationally chosen and locally appropriate holistic social protection systems, via more inclusive and responsive programming.

Introduction: Social Protection in a Time of Global Uncertainty

Rachel Sabates-Wheeler — 2024-10-25

Social protection has established itself as a vibrant policy sector across the global South, and as a pillar of international development cooperation. Social protection features in numerous country policies and development agency strategies, as well as in several Sustainable Development Goals. However, the global context today is characterised by a range of emerging and intensifying challenges and uncertainties, including post-Covid-19 pandemic recovery; the cost-of-living crisis; unprecedented climate change; and rising numbers of protracted wars and political instability, leading to mass displacement and migration. What is the role of social protection in this shifting and uncertain global context? This article highlights challenges and opportunities for social protection at this crossroads moment, under the themes of politics, crises, innovation, and inclusion, as a way of introducing and framing the contributions to this IDS Bulletin. We argue that the need for social protection has never been greater, but its future trajectories need urgent reimagining.

Social Protection: Aspirations and Limitations of an Expanding Agenda

Stephen Devereux — 2024-10-25

This article unpacks the expanding social protection agenda, in which promotive objectives have been added to the original welfarist or safety net aim of protection. It draws out the resulting tensions, potentials and limits, to inform a discussion of where African social protection is and is headed. After tracing several initial drivers of social assistance in Africa – structural adjustment, food insecurity and famines, HIV and AIDS, and conflict – it shows how promotive effects were increasingly advocated along three pathways: investment of social transfers, building human capital, and linking social with economic support. International development agencies added their own priorities to this agenda, drawing on evidence of promotive impacts to convince national governments. Drawing on Zambia’s experience, we conclude that, while the expanded agenda redirects attention to questions of economic development, its transformative potential remains limited due to a persistent focus on the micro‑level and a failure to build effective linkages to other sectors.

Enacting Social Protection Laws in Jigawa and Zamfara States, Nigeria

Victor Ikechukwu Ogharanduku — 2024-10-25

Legal frameworks are important for institutionalising and strengthening social protection systems. Two states in Nigeria, Jigawa and Zamfara, have enacted social protection laws. This article explores how the process of enacting such a law is influenced by state-level politics and local contexts, and how the activities of a project financed by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) contributed to much greater understanding and acceptance of social protection in both states. Primary data collected through in-depth interviews with state and non-state stakeholders and project staff was analysed to tease out the political, cultural, and power dynamics involved in enacting the laws. Findings show that a range of factors aimed at building the case for, and understanding of, social protection across a range of stakeholders was critical, and that a fairly standard package of tools employed in advocating for institutionalising social protection was influenced considerably by domestic political dynamics.

The Political Economy of Shock-Responsive Social Protection: Analysis from Malawi

Edward M. Archibald — 2024-10-25

Using social assistance systems to address acute needs arising from wide-scale shocks – commonly known as ‘shock-responsive social protection’ (SRSP) – raises significant political economy questions. Previously, acute needs caused by disasters across sub-Saharan Africa have primarily been met by humanitarian actors alone. SRSP disrupts the status quo by reducing humanitarian actors’ access to and control over humanitarian funding. This raises significant political questions; likewise, the introduction by SRSP of greater accountability and transparency into the implementation of humanitarian responses. This article addresses a current gap in the literature: the politics of SRSP. Referencing the concept of political settlements, the article asks what explains the evolution of SRSP in Malawi by examining the actions of domestic and international actors. It finds that there is scant evidence of national ownership of SRSP and that lack of consensus among international actors is a key obstacle to the concept becoming embedded within the political settlement.

The Future Politics of Social Protection in Africa

Jeremy Seekings — 2024-10-28

International organisations and their local allies continue to press for the further expansion of social protection across Africa, often in the face of resistance. The future politics of social protection in Africa will be shaped by endogenous and exogenous changes. Endogenous changes involve feedback effects from the past and continuing expansion of social protection; these can be either positive or negative in terms of further expansion. Exogenous effects result from the changing structural context, including especially population growth, urbanisation, and climate change. As the Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdowns showed, even those exogenous shocks which reveal gaps in current provision need not prompt enduring expansions of social protection. Neither endogenous nor exogenous changes are likely to shift African countries off their current varied pathways; considerable political obstacles to the further expansion of social protection will persist.

Social Protection in Conflict and Conflict-Related Displacement Crises

Jeremy Lind — 2024-10-28

In recent years, efforts to encourage the use of social protection in response to conflict and displacement have increased. Yet many of the lessons from social protection and shock-responsive programmes emerged in response to climate shocks and other disasters and are not necessarily transferable to conflict and displacement settings. Ultimately, the concern must be how to sustain support to the poorest and most vulnerable populations during conflict. This shifts the focus away from simply maintaining the functions and delivery capacities of state‑directed social protection towards how to harmonise multiple channels and providers of social assistance. State‑directed social protection may not be the most appropriate channel to address the needs of conflict-affected and displaced populations. This article considers the challenges to introducing, extending, and sustaining social protection in crises characterised by conflict and displacement.

Realigning Social Protection Across the Nexus: Reflections from Protracted Crises in the Arab Region

Charis Reid — 2024-10-28

Humanitarian emergencies are increasingly protracted and characterised by multiple compounding crises. International social security standards provide a roadmap for building national social protection systems. In the Arab States region, the International Labour Organization has been critically assessing how to apply these standards across the humanitarian, development, and peace nexus when countries face protracted crises. This article presents case studies in four countries: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It addresses questions on how to strengthen humanitarian–development transitions using international standards, where entry points exist or challenges remain, and how these transitions may contribute to strengthening peace through social cohesion.

Can Social Assistance Strengthen the Social Contract in Somalia?

Julie Lawson-McDowall — 2024-10-28

In a country still experiencing localised conflict, massive chronic poverty, widespread food insecurity, and the recurrent risk of famine, with a fragile government competing for legitimacy and highly dependent on donor finance, is it reasonable to expect social assistance to contribute to social contract formation? This article explores political economy analyses of what other contracts or bargains might be more important to the government and asks whether particular features or elements of social assistance programmes might contribute to improved state–society relations.

Humanitarian Activism, Social Protection, and Emergent Citizenship in Myanmar

Aung Naing — 2024-10-28

Through the confluent impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2021 military coup, Myanmar has become a failed state. Deliberate targeting of humanitarian actors by the military junta has severely constrained the activities of international non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies. In the first three post-coup years, welfare provision to the distressed and displaced were mainly undertaken by local actors who adapted to new conditions of both insecurity and broader economic turmoil. This localised welfare is intertwined with emergent local governance mechanisms, using technology and data analysis to deliver transparent, accountable, and inclusive public service. In the absence of a coherent central state, the social contract of welfare develops at more local levels, generating smaller islands of citizenship from which to build future political communities.

Linking Social Protection and Humanitarian Systems to Respond to Forced Displacement

Christina Lowe — 2024-10-28

With displacement occurring at record levels and often on a protracted basis, there is increasing interest in the potential to link humanitarian displacement responses with social protection systems. This article discusses how social protection and humanitarian systems can work together to meet the needs of displacement-affected populations, based on the findings of a three-year research project that drew on global literature alongside mixed-methods data collected in 2021 in Cameroon, Colombia, and Greece. The article discusses five lessons: (1) displaced populations’ distinct needs and implications for social protection design and delivery; (2) inadequate social protection for host communities and implications for social cohesion; (3) the priority basis for evaluating linkage approaches; (4) the need for sustained international financing; and (5) the general importance of greater transparency and collaboration. It concludes with recommendations for further research to build the nascent evidence base on this topic.

Beyond Design: Examining the Implementation of Gender-Responsive Social Protection in Ethiopia

Maria Klara Kuss — 2024-10-28

Recent years have witnessed increased global attention and investment in inclusive and gender-responsive social protection programming in low- and middle-income countries. While high-level design commitments are important and welcome, in practice, they may not guarantee protection from vulnerabilities and a reduction in gender inequality. Programme implementation presents a critical, yet often underestimated, challenge. This article offers insights into the reality of implementing the gender provisions of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme. Drawing on qualitative data from rural Ethiopia, it shows that the implementation of the gender provisions has generated implementation gaps and inconsistencies. The findings highlight the need to move beyond commitments on paper and allocate greater resources and attention to the implementation of gender-responsive social protection.

Indigenous Peoples and Social Protection: The Case of the Peruvian Amazon

Norma Correa Aste — 2024-10-28

The persistence of indigenous poverty and exclusion is one of the main challenges for social policy in Latin America. Social protection programmes, in particular conditional cash transfers, have been among the main instruments used by governments over the past two decades to respond to the high incidence of poverty in indigenous contexts. The inclusion of indigenous peoples as social protection beneficiaries remains a largely unexplored topic, despite its relevance to understand social policy trajectories in the global South. This article discusses the expansion of poverty alleviation social programmes in the Peruvian Amazon. Although the expansion of these programmes increased the state’s capacity to deliver welfare services in historically excluded areas, it also revealed the limitations of existing social protection instruments to effectively respond to indigenous poverty and vulnerability. Addressing this challenge constitutes a key opportunity to promote transformative approaches in social protection systems in Latin America.

Cellfare: Delivering Self-Targeted Social Protection Using Mobile Phones

Erlend Berg — 2024-10-28

This article proposes a new form of self-targeted social protection scheme: beneficiaries carry out a series of small tasks on their mobile phones, each linked to a small payment. Key advantages over traditional public works include potentially large reductions in leakage, costs, and delays. The proposed scheme may also be suitable to wider demographics as it does not require physical labour and can be availed from home. A prototype implementation of a ‘cellfare’ scheme was tested in rural India, and 42 participants with experience of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a large Indian public works programme, favourably compared the proposed scheme to the existing one.

Exploring Synergies Between Community Mobilisation and Cash Transfers in Bangladesh

Afrin Aktar — 2024-10-28

This article presents insights from the Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA) social protection cash plus intervention in a low‑income neighbourhood in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Adopting a novel methodology, we use community mobilisers’ monthly narrative reports, so-called ‘micronarratives’, to understand synergies between implementation and outcomes of community mobilisation activities (the ‘plus’) and cash transfers. We find that households face many intersecting problems, including health issues, low income, and indebtedness, and community mobilisation lays a foundation for households to be heard and become more resilient in the face of these problems. The introduction of cash transfers facilitated individuals and households to act on the advice and ideas offered by the community mobilisers. Households became more willing to speak with community mobilisers even when they explained that the cash transfer was unconditional on their counselling service. Some households started income-generating activities with their savings.

Glossary – Reimagining Social Protection

Stephen Devereux — 2024-10-28

This is the Glossary for IDS Bulletin 55.2, Reimagining Social Protection.

Notes on Contributors – Reimagining Social Protection

Stephen Devereux — 2024-10-25

This is the Notes on Contributors for IDS Bulletin 55.2, Reimagining Social Protection.

Stephen Devereux, Jeremy Lind, Keetie Roelen and Rachel Sabates-Wheeler

IDS Bulletin Editor — 2024-10-15