Readers may be interested to know of a couple of recent publications.
The first from the World Bank indicates the role it is playing in advising
the G7 on good practice in social policy - see end of my extract below. I
always seem to catch up with these developments very belatedly and I wonder
what contribution any colleagues are making. It was not on the WB website
www.worldbank.org/sp when I looked.
Adrian Sinfield, University of Edinburgh.
Social Risk Management: A new conceptual framework for Social Protection and
beyond
by Robert Holzmann and Steen Jorgensen, Social Protection Discussion paper
no. 0006, February 2000, some 30 pp.
Abstract:
This paper proposes a new definition and conceptual framework for Social
Protection grounded in Social Risk Management. The concept repositions the
traditional areas of Social Protection (labour market intervention, social
insurance and social safety nets) in a framework that includes three
strategies to deal with risk (prevention, mitigation and coping), three
levels of formality of risk management (informal, market-based, public) and
many actors (individuals, households, communities, NGOs, governments at
various levels and international organisations) against the background of
asymmetric information and different types of risk. This expanded view of
Social Protection emphasises the double role of risk management instruments
- protecting basic livelihood as well as promoting risk taking. It focusses
specifically on the poor since they are the most vulnerable to risk and
typically lack appropriate risk management instruments, which constrains
them from engaging in riskier but also higher return activities and hence
gradually moving out of chronic poverty.
The Introduction and Overview begins:
'Social Protection ... is back on the international agenda. The recent
experience of East Asia has demonstrated that high economic growth rates
over many decades can impressively reduce poverty. The recent financial
crisis, however, also showed that if appropriate income protection measures
and safety net programs are not in place, individuals are very vulnerable
when GDP falls dramatically, wages decrease and/or unemployment rises. This
has prompted the G7 to request that the World Bank formulate "Social
Principles" and "Good Practice of Social Policy" to guide policy makers in
their attempts to improve the minimum social conditions ofindividuals, which
includes Social Protection provision in normal times and episodes of crisis
and stress
[and it then references two 1999 mimeo papers from the World Bank entitled
'A Note on Principles and Good Practices in Social Policy' and 'Managing the
Social Dimension of Crisis - Good Practices of Social Policy'].
ILO has just published its World Labour Report 2000 summarised on its
website www.ilo.org This yearıs title is Income security and social
protection in a changing world. Some 300+ pages.
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