Dear Adrian and colleagues --
Fascinating! Too bad the poor are not able
to play the stock market in other words,
that would solve evrything
Mel Bartley
> 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.
>
>
Mel Bartley
Dept of Epidemiology and Public Health
University College London Medical School
1-19 Torrington Place
London WC1E 6BT
tel: 0171 391 1707
fax: 0171 813 0242
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