Is Latin America Transitioning from Poor Relief cash transfers to a More Progressive and Inclusive Vision of Social Security?
Despite all the hype around poor relief conditional cash transfers in Latin America, the ideology underpinning social protection in the continent is shifting. While conditional cash transfers are targeted at the poor – with the result that the majority of the poor are excluded (see here for an explanation) – a...
Pro-Poor Policies and the Rise of an Alienated Middle-Class in Developing Countries
From Turkey to Brazil, the middle-class are out on the streets protesting. In a thought-provoking article, Francis Fukuyama argues that the cause of these protests is a growing middle class with aspirations that are not being realised. As he notes: “Newly arrived members of the middle-class are more likely to be...
Importance of dignity to social protection implementation underlined in Guadalajara
4th September: Academia and international development experts have met in Mexico to discuss the social transformations required to eradicate poverty and significantly reduce inequality within and among countries. Participants discussing...
Graduation in Public Policy: Challenges and Trends
Despite considerable economic progress in Latin America, as of 2012 there were still 66 million people living in extreme poor (close to 30% of the population). This underscores the importance of finding innovative and scalable ways to help people out of extreme poverty. Despite dramatic advances in technology and means...
Bolsa unFAMILIAr
Senior Social Policy Specialists Stephen Kidd and Karishma Huda write about the misconceptions of Brazil’s conditional cash transfer, Bolsa Familia, in the ninth edition of our Pathways Perspectives publications. Our...
Gauntlet thrown down to social protection authorities to take forward realisation of rights
12th December: Social protection authorities can ensure programmes respect key human rights principles by assessing the impact on disadvantaged citizens and empowering them to seek redress. This is the message...
What is the Future of Bolsa Família?
Bolsa Família is often promoted as a model of good practice for social protection programmes in the developing world. As a Brazilian, in the short period of time that I’ve worked on international social protection, I’ve been surprised by how famous Bolsa Família is around the world and how it...
Extent of World Bank’s poverty-targeting demands laid bare in civil society analysis
The World Bank pushes for more poverty-targeting in most of its loan conditions on social protection even whilst acknowledging the downsides to this means of selecting beneficiaries, a new analysis...
The two lives of social protection: the tale of cash transfers and social security
Here’s a curious tale about two very different forms of social protection: one is much loved by researchers, the media and donors, but its charms are debatable; the other is too often shunned by academia, commentators and funders despite holding greater promise and staying-power. We could call them ‘cash transfers’...
“Redistributive” social protection key tool for addressing rising inequality, says global coalition
Rising inequality is a setback for the Sustainable Development Goals and must be combatted by improving coverage and adequacy of social protection systems, according to the Global Coalition for Social...