Great Expectations: Is the IMF turning words into action on inequality?
In recent years, the International Monetary Fund has become a global leader in highlighting the inequality crisis; consistently identifying it as a major threat to human progress and prosperity. This is a significant shift from its previously held position that rising inequality was a necessary trade-off for achieving greater...
Read MoreThe Political Economy of Income Distribution: industry level evidence from 14 OECD countries
This article presents an econometric estimation of the determinants of the wage share, using sectoral data for 14 OECD countries for the period 1970- 2014. We present estimations for the wage share of high- and low-skilled workers and within manufacturing and service industries. We augment sectoral data with input-output...
Read MoreIncome Inequality and Labour Income Share in G20 Countries: Trends, impacts and causes
The Government of Turkey has made inclusiveness one of the three priorities of its G20 Presidency. This builds upon the G20 Leaders’ commitment in 2014 to “…support development and inclusive growth, and help to reduce inequality and poverty.” Indeed, the inclusiveness of growth, and the related issues of...
Read MoreThe Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index
In 2015, the leaders of 193 governments promised to reduce inequality as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Without reducing inequality, meeting the SDG to eliminate poverty will be impossible. Now Development Finance International and Oxfam have produced the first index to measure the commitment of governments to...
Read MoreThe Political Economy of Tax Reforms and the Implications for Social Development in Nicaragua
This paper examines the mobilization of domestic resources for social development in Nicaragua, analysing the fiscal system, its main tool. The main argument of the paper is that many tax reforms that have taken place in Nicaragua since the 1970s have been motivated mainly by the objective to increase...
Read MoreTowards Income Security in Asia and the Pacific: A Focus on Income Support Schemes
Rising inequality as well as the need to build resilience to crises, whether economic and financial crises, or natural disasters, have increased the call for strengthening social protection in the Asia-Pacific region. To strengthen social protection, most countries in the region have already set in place income support schemes,...
Read MoreSocial Protection, Inequality and Social Justice
Social protection refers to a range of policies that explicitly aim to reduce poverty and vulnerability, and which have the potential to be redistributive. This contribution argues that social protection can significantly contribute to reducing inequality and social injustice, particularly when it is designed and delivered in conjunction with...
Read MoreChallenging Inequalities: Pathways to a just world (World Social Science Report 2016)
This report looks at seven dimensions of inequality and how they interact to shape people’s lives by creating a vicious cycle of inequality. Inequalities should not just be understood and tackled in terms of income and wealth. Inequalities can be economic, political, social, cultural, environmental, spatial and knowledge-based. The...
Read MoreMultidimensional progress: well-being beyond income
The report focuses on the increasingly pressing challenges facing the region. In times of global economic fragility, eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities in all their dimensions require a twofold strategy: protecting the achievements of the last decade to prevent millions from falling back into poverty while promoting comprehensive policies...
Read MoreSocial Protection in Brazil: Impacts on poverty, inequality and growth
Brazil is one of the richest countries in the world, with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $10,427 in 2009. Growth rates increased from 1.9% to 5.1% per year from 1998 to 2008. Yet the country also has one of the highest rates of inequality in the...
Read MoreReducing Poverty and Investing in People: The new role of safety nets in Africa
Over the past two decades, Africa’s strong economic growth has paved the way for poverty reduction. Between 1995 and 2008, the percentage of the African population living in poverty fell from 58 percent to 48 percent (World Bank 2011). Nevertheless, high poverty levels persist, especially in rural areas, and...
Read MoreSocial transfers and poverty in middle- and high- income countries – A global perspective
This study investigates an old question that has re-emerged in social policy making and in analyses of global social development: to what extent does targeting and size of social transfers matter for poverty? Using multilevel logistic regression and Cross- National Data Center in Luxembourg (LIS) income data for 40...
Read MoreHuman Rights Council Side Event on 19 June
On 19 June, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the International Movement ATD Fourth World, with support of the Permanent Missions of Belgium, Chile, France and Romania will hold a side event at the Human Rights Council. The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human...
Read MoreReport on extreme poverty and human rights (A/HRC/29/31), submitted by the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights focuses on the relationship between extreme poverty and extreme inequality and argues that a human rights framework is critical in addressing extreme inequality. In the report, the Special Rapporteur provides an overview of the widening economic...
Read MoreCombating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics
This report argues that this is because many current approaches to reducing poverty and inequality fail to consider key institutional, policy and political dimensions that may be both causes of poverty and inequality, and obstacles to their reduction. Moreover, when a substantial proportion of a country’s population is poor,...
Read MoreSocial protection and social exclusion: an analytical framework to assess the links
This Background Note suggests that social exclusion is a useful lens for researching and analysing the effects of social protection policies and programmes in low- and middle-income countries. It discusses current trends in social protection discourse, and some specific examples of how social protection could promote social inclusion by...
Read MoreGendered Impacts of Globalization: Employment and Social Protection
The last three decades have seen remarkable changes in economic structures and policies both within and across countries, loosely captured by the term globalization. This paper reviews evidence on how key aspects of globalization processes have impacted the real economy, in terms of employment and social conditions of work...
Read MoreHuman Development Report 2014 – Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience
The 2014 Human Development Report – Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience provides a fresh perspective on vulnerability and proposes ways to strengthen resilience. According to income-based measures of poverty, 1.2 billion people live with $1.25 or less a day. However, according to the UNDP Multidimensional Poverty Index,...
Read MoreSocial Protection and Poverty
In the last decade, social protection has emerged as a policy framework employed to address poverty and vulnerability in developing countries. This report has two main aims: to provide an overview of social protection, and to provide an assessment of its potential contribution to addressing poverty and vulnerability in...
Read MoreA new global partnership: eradicate poverty and transform economies through sustainable development
As a continuity to the MDGs, this report presents a vision and a framework for the post-2015 Development Agenda. It first settles the priority transformations with five transformative shifts (leave no one behind, put sustainable development at the core, transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth, build peace and effective,...
Read MoreSocial protection floor for a fair and inclusive globalization
This report, prepared under the guidance of Ms Michelle Bachelet and members of the Advisory Group, shows that the extension of social protection, drawing on social protection floors, can play a pivotal role in relieving people of poverty and deprivation. It can in addition help people adapt their skills...
Read MorePoverty and shame: global experiences
Poverty and Shame: Global Experiences, edited by Elaine Chase and Grace Bantebya-Kyomuhendo, explores Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s contention that shame lies at the absolutist core of poverty. It draws on a wealth of empirical evidence to demonstrate how paying greater attention to the psychological and social consequences of poverty...
Read MoreThe shame of poverty: global perspectives
The Shame of Poverty, edited by Robert Walker, presents comparable evidence from the seven countries, challenges the conventional thinking that separates discussion of poverty found in the Global North from that prevalent in the Global South. It demonstrates that the emotional experience of poverty, with its attendant social and...
Read MoreAusterity measures that contravene Conventions by reducing social protection and increasing poverty in Greece
Recalling previous recommendations, the Committee observed that the austerity measures in conjunction with the continuous contractions of the economy, employment and public finances posed a threat to the viability of the Greek national social security system, resulting in the impoverishment of the population, thus undermining the application of all...
Read MoreSocial Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202)
Recommendation No. 202 is the first international instrument to offer guidance to countries to close social security gaps and progressively achieve universal protection through the establishment and maintenance of comprehensive social security systems. To this aim, the Recommendation calls for (1) the implementation, as a priority, of social protection...
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