Stephen Kidd
Senior Social Policy Specialist & CEO
Stephen Kidd has over three decades supported robust strategies and effective delivery in social development and social protection in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. Our CEO led DFID’s social protection work, policy at HelpAge International, and a development programme in Paraguay. He proudly hails from Newcastle.
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Stephen Kidd's Work
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How to Finance Inclusive Social Protection
A guide to financing social protection developed by UNESCAP to support policymakers and practitioners in Asia and the Pacific in their efforts to strengthen social protection. Development Pathways contributed to...
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Leaving No-one Behind: Building Inclusive Social Protection Systems for Persons with Disabilities
This report examines how to make social protection systems and schemes more inclusive of persons with disabilities. Social protection can play a key role in empowering persons with disabilities by...
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Hit and Miss: An assessment of targeting effectiveness in social protection
This paper is the result of a global review of the effectiveness of different methods of selecting social protection recipients, both universal and poverty-targeted social protection schemes. The work, supported...
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Why We Need Social Protection
This e-learning guide, developed by UNESCAP with Development Pathways, raises awareness of the role social protection systems can play in tackling poverty.
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How to Design Inclusive Social Protection Systems
The policy guide sets out a step-by-step process of extending coverage in order to realise the right to social security for all, citing a number of examples including Nepal, a low-income nation that introduced an old age pension for everyone aged 75 years and over and a scheme for widows aged 60 years.
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How to Implement Inclusive Social Protection Schemes
The practical guidance How to Implement Inclusive Social Protection Schemes outlines the need for effective operational delivery to ensure the right amount of money is paid to the right person at...
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Social Protection and Disability in South Africa
This working paper launches a new series of publications that identify good practice in enabling the inclusion of persons with disabilities in social protection systems and programmes. It finds that...
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Pro-Poor or Anti-Poor?
Stephen Kidd considers the growing role of the World Bank and IMF in shaping national social protection policies as questions are being asked about their approach to the issue.
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Transfer Values in Kenya’s National Social Security System
This report seeks to examine the current transfer values of Kenya’s tax-financed social security schemes and assess whether they are set at an appropriate level.
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Are you designing social protection schemes from a charity or a citizenship paradigm?
Social protection is not always beneficial and popular. A way of predicting whether a programme will have positive impacts and be supported by voters is to identify whether it falls...
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Social pensions and their contribution to economic growth
A Ugandan Ministry of Gender, Labour & Social Development and the Expanding Social Protection programme report reviews evidence on how social pensions help expand local economies. It says that a number...
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Anti-Social Registries: how a database excludes many from social protection
A craze sweeping the social protection world for Social Registries is systematically depriving some of the world’s poorest not only of social protection but also of access to vital services. So argues our...
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The effectiveness of the Graduation Approach: What does the evidence tell us?
In a special edition of the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth’s Policy in Focus, the graduation approach to poverty reduction is explored by a number of contributors. The paper...
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Exclusion by Design: the effectiveness of the Proxy Means Test
In recent years, the proxy means test (PMT) has become the predominant targeting mechanism for social assistance schemes in developing countries. It has many powerful advocates and claims that it...
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Social Protection for Informal Workers in Asia
A book addressing gaps in social protection for informal workers in Asia that discusses issues that need to be addressed, including financing, design, governance, and political economy. Chapter 7 by...
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Social Assistance in Vietnam: Review and Proposals for Reform
In recent decades, Vietnam’s social protection system has grown, but remains imbalanced, with most benefits continuing to reach the better-off, rather than the majority of the population. Social Assistance in...
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To condition or not to condition: what is the evidence?
‘The World Bank do not like having conditions imposed on them: so why impose them on others?’ In the first of our Pathways Perspectives of the year, we look at...
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The Effectiveness of Targeting: Options for Uganda
This paper attempts to clarify the concept of targeting within the context of Uganda and discuss the most effective means of ensuring that ‘the poor’ and vulnerable are included in...
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Uganda’s Senior Citizens’ Grant: A success story from the heart of Africa
In this paper Development Pathways’ Stephen Kidd discusses the success of Uganda’s Senior Citizens’ Grant (SCG), with evidence from the evaluation of the programme. The SCG, a Government of Uganda...
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Inclusive lifecycle social security: An option for Uganda?
Inclusive lifecycle social security: an option for Uganda? considers the feasibility and likely effects of introducing a comprehensive social protection system in the low-income country. The report, available for download below, for...
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The Political Economy of ‘Targeting’ of Social Security Schemes
Don’t target ‘the poor’ if you really want to help ‘the poor’ In this edition of our Pathways Perspectives, Stephen Kidd examines the evidence on the political economy of ‘targeting’. By...
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Child wellbeing and social security in Georgia: the case for moving to a more inclusive national social security system
This UNICEF paper examines a range of options for increasing the impacts of the national social security system on children. It suggests that if Georgia is considering extending the Child...
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The design and management of cash transfer programmes: an overview
Social protection programmes are increasingly recognised as an important tool for tackling poverty and inequality in developing countries, with many implementing large-scale cash transfer programmes aiming to offer comprehensive access...
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Child-Sensitive Social Protection in Fiji: Assessment of the Care and Protection Allowance
UNICEF and Fiji’s Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation commissioned Development Pathways to carry out the assessment of the Care and Protection Allowance, a national scheme that provides monthly cash transfers and food vouchers to children in vulnerable and low-income families.
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Establishing Comprehensive National Old Age Pension Systems
KfW Development Bank commissioned Stephen Kidd through Development Pathways for this paper which describes and explains the policy options available to developing countries committed to offering universal pension coverage and...
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Social Protection: An Effective and Sustainable Investment in Developing Countries
A KfW paper details some of the impacts of tax-financed social protection schemes in developing countries and the significant positive benefits that they bring. These range from building human capital to...
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Social Exclusion and Access to Social Protection schemes
Exclusion from social protection remains a significant challenge. This study, based on interviews with researchers and programme implementers in Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, and a literature review and experience across many countries, explores factors behind this.
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The Misuse of the Term ‘Graduation’ in Social Policy
In our 14th Pathways Perspective, Stephen Kidd, Senior Social Policy Advisor, discusses why the term ‘graduation’ should be eliminated from international development discourse. The term ‘graduation’ conflates the two concepts...
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Rethinking ‘Targeting’ in International Development
Stephen Kidd argues that the debates on targeting are essentially ideological, and we need to rethink the way in which we approach the issue.
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Achieving Education and Health Outcomes in Pacific Island Countries
A research paper examining the challenges facing Pacific Island countries as they strive to improve the health and education of their people. It examines the policies that need to be...
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Poverty, Vulnerability and Social Protection in the Pacific – the Role of Social Transfers
This paper examines the evidence on poverty and vulnerability and its causes in the region, and seeks to understand what role social transfers such as pensions, child grants and disability grants, could play in tackling poverty.
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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...
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The Zomba conditional cash transfer experiment: An assessment of its methodology
In the 6th edition of our Pathways Perspectives publications, Stephen Kidd and Rebecca Calder examine the results of a study undertaken by the World Bank in an attempt to assess...
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A Case Study of How Not to do Targeting Analysis
Stephen Kidd provides a critique of a recent World Bank paper that provides an excellent example of how not to do targeting analysis. The World Bank paper demonstrates how to...
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Social Safety Net ≠ Safety Net
This Perspective argues that the majority of “social safety nets” do not, in fact, fulfil the minimum criteria of a “safety net:” in effect, they are not available to catch people as they fall into poverty.
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Child Poverty in OECD Countries: Lessons for Developing Countries
Child Poverty in OECD Countries: Lessons for Developing Countries by Stephen Kidd is a think piece examining how developed countries have tackled child poverty, and what this might mean for...
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Good practice in the development of management information systems for social protection
In recent years, social protection has moved rapidly up the policy agenda in developing countries. Debates on the design of social protection schemes, however, are often dominated by ideological discussions....
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Assessing Targeting Options for Nepal’s Social Grants – What Does The Evidence Tell Us?
The Government of Nepal and development partners have been working together to develop a stronger evidence base to inform thinking about social protection policy and support the implementation and scale...
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Equal pensions, equal rights: achieving universal pension coverage for older women and men in developing countries
In most countries, state pensions are financed from pay-roll taxes. However, such pensions have a strong male bias, with more men than women accessing them while also receiving higher benefits....
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