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...

Thailand’s Old Age Pension: an example of the importance of good quality analysis

I recently come across a draft report by the World Bank on Thailand’s old age pension system. The report states it is for consultation, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to provide a few thoughts and helpfully point out a key problem with the analysis. In 2009, Thailand implemented a large-scale...

Uganda’s Old Age Pension: Who Benefits?

Uganda has been piloting two social protection schemes over the last few years, under its Expanding Social Protection (ESP) Programme. This is a 5-year government programme, supported by DFID and Irish AID. The pilot schemes are intended to gather evidence on impacts of cash transfers as a means of informing...

The Imperatives for Social Protection

Nigeria must establish a social assistance/security system that caters to vulnerable members of society such as the extremely poor and the disabled. This fund must be targeted at persons who have not and/or cannot make any contribution to pension.

Bangladesh approves, in principle, its National Social Security Strategy

In early April 2015, the Cabinet of the Government of Bangladesh approved in principle its new National Social Security Strategy (NSSS), subject to some changes. Since independence, Bangladesh has instituted a range of social security schemes although the level of investment in conventional cash-based schemes has remained relatively low, at...

Local government leads the way with inclusive social protection in Indonesia

28th August 2017: The local government in one Indonesian district has reported on the impacts of an inclusive social protection scheme for the elderly and committed to its continuation. The...

Ugandan MPs winning argument to make Senior Citizens’ Grant national, event hears

30th November 2017: The political discussion about the future of Uganda’s piloted Senior Citizens’ Grant has progressed to how the pension can be introduced nationally, an event heard last night....

Africa Must Improve Its Social Services

The African welfare state and how it distributes resources is an interesting point of analysis. While some people see an all-inclusive welfare state structure, others see a system that overwhelmingly favours an economic elite. I belong to this latter group, writes Tochukwu Akunyili. Most African countries lack a coherent welfare...

Insight into older people’s experiences of accessing pensions revealed

1st March 2018: Today HelpAge International launches a refreshed version of its Pension Watch website. The site now includes citizen-generated data in a section on voice and accountability. The idea...

A new dawn for social protection: a proposal to transform all social security programmes into conditional cash transfers

At Development Pathways, we like to please everyone. Recently, we’ve become particularly concerned by the continuing desire of many people to sanction poor and vulnerable families through the use of punitive conditions, despite the absolute lack of evidence of any added value from their use. So we’ve been racking our...