Safety nets are noncontributory transfer programs targeted to the poor or vulnerable. They play important roles in social policy. Safety nets redistribute income, thereby immediately reducing poverty and inequality; they enable households to invest in the human capital of their children and in the livelihoods of their earners; they help households manage risk, both ex ante and ex post; and they allow governments to implement macroeconomic or sectoral reforms that support efficiency and growth. To be effective, safety nets must not only be well intended, but also well designed and well implemented. A good safety net system and its programs are tailored to country circumstances, adequate in their coverage and generosity, equitable, cost-effective, incentive compatible, and sustainable. Good safety nets are also dynamic and change over time as the economy changes or as management problems are solved and new standards are set. Drawing on a wealth of research, policy, and operational documents from both academia and the World Bank s work in over 100 countries, For Protection and Promotion provides pragmatic and informed guidance on how to design and implement safety nets, including useful information on how to define eligibility and select beneficiaries, set and pay benefits, and monitor and evaluate programs and systems. The book synthesizes the literature to date and enriches it with new examples on various program options cash transfers (conditional and unconditional), in-kind transfers, price subsidies, fee waivers, and public works. It concludes with a comprehensive diagnostic for fitting safety net systems and programs to specific circumstances.
This study reviews the role and workings, with their strengths and weaknesses of last-resort income support (LRIS) programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It draws on a combination of household survey and administrative data for a large group of countries and detailed case studies for a smaller number of countries that span the spectrum of the income range in the region. It thus combines the value of wide, comparable multi-country work with that of in-depth, country-specific probing on key themes. The experiences of LRIS programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have demonstrated the technical feasibility of highly efficient poverty-targeted programs in the region. The detailed case studies suggest how programs can improve their coverage, control error and fraud and be implemented effectively in decentralized settings. This experience is pertinent to other regions as well, adding to the know-how for poverty targeting programs in middle and low income countries. Perhaps especially importantly, the book shows that means testing can be accomplished in settings with sizeable informal sectors and at reasonable administrative costs. The study also suggests that currently the role of last resort income support programs within the overall social protection systems of the region is often too small and that their eligibility thresholds should be revised and indexed, so that the programs continue to serve a meaningful swath of the low income households in each country. Moreover the programs can be used as the nexus to weave together a variety of income supports and services for low income households.
Global Environment Facility Working Paper 8. Describes the five key research areas to be addressed by the Program for Measuring Incremental Costs for the Environment (PRINCE). This paper outlines incremental cost concepts, operational interpretations, national climate change studies, country studies on ozone protection, and transaction costs. It also develops a broad interpretation of incremental cost that can be used across the range of issues covered by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Those issues include global warming, pollution of international waters, destruction of biodiversity, and ozone depletion. This is one of five GEF Working Papers to explore the PRINCE program and is co-published with the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.
Socially inclusive growth is the talk of the town in developing countries. But to go from talk to walk these countries face a critical task: reconstructing their welfare states given the failures of the standard Bismarckian model and the challenges posed by rapid technological change. This book—known to many as the White Paper—is indispensable for tackling this task. It develops a clear conceptual framework to help policy makers understand this complex issue, set clear objectives, evaluate trade-offs, and chart a coherent path of reform. A much-needed and very welcome contribution." --Santiago Levy, Senior Fellow—Global Economy and Development, Brookings Economic and Social Policy in Latin America Initiative, Brookings Institution "Most countries have failed to support people adequately as the combination of globalization and technology changes the structure of their economies and their jobs. This has fostered a backlash in which economic insecurity is widespread and support for populist policies is on the rise. We can do much better than this by sharing risks and providing a guaranteed minimum to everyone. This important book lays out a set of policies that strikes a new balance between economic flexibility and individual security that is relevant to both advanced and developing countries." --Minouche Shafik, Director, London School of Economics and Political Science "Economic insecurity confronts working people around the world today. To overcome this insecurity through suitable risk-sharing interventions is a policy challenge of the first order. This exceptionally thoughtful and clearly written book charts a course for replacing employment-based risk-sharing policies with social insurance†“based ones, financed by general revenues with the broadest possible base. The resultant Flexicurity model promises 'a more robust and resilient policy response to a diverse and fluid world of work.' " --Gary Fields, Professor of International and Comparative Labor and Professor of Economics, Cornell University "Protecting All presents thoughtful, thorough, and bold proposals to achieve universal social protection in a modern welfare state. This lucid document identifies implementable policies for poverty prevention, coping with livelihood shocks, and managing labor market risks that range from state-guaranteed publicly funded income floors to mandated consumption-smoothing mechanisms funded by individual contributions to privately financed incentivized and purely voluntary consumption-smoothing schemes. Clearly written, rich with ideas, and relevant for countries at all income levels, Protecting All is bound to become an essential reference for policy makers and policy analysts focused on (re)designing social protection systems that achieve key social goals in ways consistent with fast-changing labor markets, fiscal sustainability, and economic efficiency and growth." --Nora Lustig, Professor of Latin American Economics and Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute, Tulane University
Drawing on a database of more than one hundred anti-poverty interventions in 47 countries, 'Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries' provides a general review of experiences with methods used to target interventions in transition and developing countries. Written for policymakers and program managers in developing countries, in donor agencies, and in NGOs who have responsibility for designing interventions that reach the poor, it conveys what targeting options are available, what results can be expected as well as information that will assist in choosing among them and in their implementation. Key messages are: - While targeting 'works' - the median program transfers 25 percent more to the poor than would a universal allocation - targeting performance around the world is highly variable. - Means testing, geographic targeting, and self-selection based on a work requirement are the most robustly progressive methods. Proxy means testing, community-based selection of individuals and demographic targeting to children show good results on average, but with considerable variation. - Demographic targeting to the elderly, community bidding, and self-selection based on consumption show limited potential for good targeting. - There is no single preferred method for all types of programs or all country contexts. Successful targeting depends critically on how a method is implemented. The CD-ROM includes the database of interventions, an annotated bibliography (PDF) and Spanish and Russian translations of the book (PDFs).
This third and final volume from the City Study analyzes the structure of Bogota and Cali, Colombia by modelling different markets and the behavior of individuals, households, firms, and governments within these markets. Simple economic reasoning is used to understand the urban behavior that can determine a city's overall appearance and structure. The author underlines the importance of this understanding which, he argues, could lead to the creation of more effective urban policies. This study links infrastructure requirements and supply to the behavior of urban life and to the existing income distribution in the city. The author concludes that institutional responses to the rapidly changing and unpredictable demands of metropolitan residents must become an inherent part of city structure, and that this would be the most practical way of coping with urban growth.
World Bank Discussion Paper No. 302. Presents an alternative way of financing development in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to address the shortcomings of past investment lending. This study discusses sector investment programs (SIPs) as an alternative way of financing development in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to address the shortcomings of past investment lending in the region. The report examines the nature and features of SIPs by drawing on the limited experience with such operations in a number of coutries to date, including Bangladesh, Mozambique, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Zambia. A SIP is distinguished by its comprehensive sector coverage, by close coordination among all parties, including stakholders and donors, and by the requirement that it be formulated under local ownership and management
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