Mainstreaming Graduation into Social Protection Floors (One Pager 324)
With the recent adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), eradicating extreme poverty presents a major challenge for governments worldwide. Despite recent progress, 902 million people remain in extreme poverty. To attain the right to social protection for people living in extreme poverty and, simultaneously, Goal 1,...
Read MoreThe Social Dimensions of Saudi Vision 2030: a paradigm shift (One Pager 361)
This One Pager explains that to address internal development issues in Saudi Arabia such as poverty, vulnerability and inequality, the Vision 2030 plan and its programmes have, inter alia, pointed to a number of specific goals, targets and policy measures to reduce social vulnerability, address labour market issues for women and promote...
Read MoreFrom Expansion to Austerity: challenges and risks of the radical fiscal policy turn in Brazil (One Pager 360)
Brazil, in the period after the great financial crisis of 2007–2008, presents a compelling case study of the interactions between fiscal policy and business cycles. The country is noteworthy not only for being one of the very few that dealt relatively well with the most acute stage of the...
Read MoreBrazilian Fiscal Policy in Perspective: from expansion to austerity
This paper analyses the changes in orientation and composition of Brazilian fiscal policy, focusing on three recent periods and seeking to explore their relationship with economic performance. The first period (2005–2010) was characterised by fiscal expansion, with public investment and redistributive transfers as its main drivers. Economic performance was...
Read MoreBehavioural Insights in Poverty Reduction Policies
This Policy Research Brief presents some elements that should be carefully considered in the design of policies and programmes to overcome poverty, based on evidence from the field of behavioural economics. A growing number of international experiences point to the fact that, in many situations, government policies and programmes...
Read MoreGlobal Goals for Every Child: progress and disparities among children in South Africa.
This report presents an analysis of progress and disparities among children in South Africa. Data show significant progress during the past two decades in areas such as child poverty, child survival, mother to-child transmission of HIV and primary school attendance, among others. These are impressive achievements, but they are...
Read MoreIMF Conditionality and Development Policy Space, 1985-2014
In recent years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has re-emerged as a central actor in global economic governance. Its rhetoric and policies suggest that the organization has radically changed the ways in which it offers financial assistance to countries in economic trouble. We revisit two long-standing controversies: Has the...
Read MoreChildren of Austerity: impact of the great recession on child poverty in rich countries
The 2008 financial crisis triggered the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Many OECD countries responded to the crisis by reducing social spending. Through 11 diverse country case studies (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States), this volume describes the...
Read MoreSocial Return on Investment: accounting for value in the context of implementing Health 2020 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Social return on investment (SROI) is a concept to account for social value when evaluating investments. It goes beyond traditional economic evaluation tools, by considering value produced for multiple stakeholders in all three dimensions of development: economic, social and environmental. This discussion paper reviews the main features of SROI...
Read MorePlaying with Fire: deepened financial integration and changing vulnerabilities of the Global South
From the early 1990s many emerging and developing economies (EDEs) liberalized their capital accounts, allowing greater freedom for international lenders and investors to enter their markets, as well as for their residents to operate in international financial markets. Despite recurrent crises, liberalization has accelerated in the new millennium. Global...
Read MoreEconomic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2017: governance and fiscal management
Economic growth in Asia-Pacific economies, although steady, is modest compared with its recent historical trend amid prolonged weak external demand and its ramifications, such as subdued investment and rising trade protectionism. While robust economic growth is not a sufficient condition for achieving broader development goals, the lack of it...
Read MoreBuilding the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in rich countries
The Sustainable Development Goals have set ambitious targets that apply to rich countries as well as poor. The most telling sign of a nation’s progress towards meeting those goals will be how well it meets the needs of its children. This Report Card offers an assessment of child well-being...
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 MoreReport on extreme poverty and human rights (A/HRC/35/26), submitted by the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
The focus of the present report is on the idea of replacing or supplementing existing social protection systems with a universal basic income (“basic income”). In recent months, this proposal has drawn increased attention from governments, scholars, and practitioners in a range of different fields, and four major books...
Read MoreConditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean: Coverage and investment trends
This document analyses the evolution of the population coverage and investment of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes, which are poverty reduction initiatives, in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean over the past 20 years. The analysis is based on up-to-date, detailed information from the database on non-contributory...
Read MorePartnership Schools for Liberia: a critical review
This report reviews and analyses documents related to the Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) pilot. It particularly highlights the Baseline Report conducted by Innovations for Poverty Actions (IPA) (2017), and the Coalition for Transparency and Accountability in Education (COTAE) monitoring report (2017). The analysis focuses on three key areas:...
Read MoreWorld Economic and Social Survey 2017: Reflecting on seventy years of development policy analysis
The World Economic and Social Survey 2017 reviews the seventy-year history of a flagship publication, the oldest continuing report of its kind. The objective of this review is to draw lessons from the past that are relevant to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Over the...
Read MoreGender and Cash Transfers: A human rights-based approach
This Issue Brief explores some key gender dimensions of conditional cash transfers through the lens of the human rights-based approach to social protection. In many cash transfer programmes around the world, women are the principal beneficiaries on the assumption that this not only improves the nutrition, health and education...
Read MoreSanitation and Social Protection: a human rights-based approach
This Issue Brief introduces readers to the human rights-based approach to sanitation. Access to sanitation may reduce vulnerability, a key focus of social protection. This briefing paper makes the case for an increased focus on sanitation as a human right, explores current approaches to address this right, and provides...
Read MoreImplementation of International Labour Standards for Domestic Workers
There are approximately 67 million domestic workers worldwide, the clear majority of whom (80 per cent) are women. Many domestic workers, if not most, come from disadvantaged social groups, making them particularly vulnerable to discrimination and abuse at work.1 In 2011, to address these concerns, the International Labour Organization...
Read MoreRoma Students’ Right to Equality and Non-Discrimination in the Czech Republic
Participatory implementation of D.H. case promotes inclusion of Roma children in Czech schools In this case, applicants challenged the disproportionate classification of Roma school children in the Czech Republic as having special education needs as well as their segregation into schools for children with “Light Mental Disabilities”. The European...
Read MoreEquitable Education Funding in the United States
This case focused on whether school funding by the State of Kansas was equitable and adequate, as required under the relevant state constitutional provisions regulating the provision of education. Upon finding violations in connection with the equitable distribution of funds and the adequacy of such funds to ensure constitutionally...
Read MoreThe Rise of Homegrown Ideas and Grassroots Voices: new directions in social policy in Rwanda
At the core of Rwanda’s social policy renaissance is the emphasis on the home-grown and grassroots centred generation of intellectual and material resources, utilized with the aim of ensuring a local population familiar with and favourably disposed to government social policy. In the past decade and a half, Rwanda...
Read MoreA Political Economy Analysis of Domestic Resource Mobilization in Uganda
This synthesis paper brings together the research findings from four papers prepared by the Uganda team as a part of the UNRISD Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilization for Social Development project, which addresses three broad themes: bargaining and contestation, key relations, and institution building with regard to mobilizing resources...
Read MoreReformas Estatales, Fortalecimiento Institucional y Políticas de Movilización de Recursos en Nicaragua: El Caso del Sector de la Salud
En el presente estudio sobre la movilización de recursos domésticos para el desarrollo social se analiza el sector de la salud en Nicaragua desde 1972 hasta 2015. Se examinan las variaciones en las políticas que afectan el sector salud y su financiamiento, el papel de las instituciones, la fuerza...
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