The State of Social Enterprise in Kenya
In Kenya, where the youth unemployment rate is 25 per cent, 65 per cent of all social enterprises seek to create employment opportunities and the sector provides significant leadership opportunities for young people and women. Moreover, one in ten Kenyan social enterprise operates...
Read MoreActivist to Entrepreneur: The role of social enterprise in supporting women’s empowerment in the US
This report examines the role that social enterprise is playing in addressing gender inequality and women’s empowerment in the US, where women earn 65 cents for every dollar earned by a man and are chronically under-represented in positions of leadership. It is one of a series of reports on...
Read MoreFinancing the end of extreme poverty
In 2015, leaders of all countries committed to “eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere” by 2030. In the past 25 years, the world has managed to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty. Yet despite this progress, at least 400 million people will still be living on...
Read MoreThe Humanitarian Metadata Problem: “Doing no harm” in the digital era
New technologies continue to present great risks and opportunities for humanitarian action. To ensure that their use does not result in any harm, humanitarian organisations must develop and implement appropriate data protection standards, including robust risk assessments. However, this requires a good understanding of what these technologies are, what...
Read MoreSocial Outlook for Asia and the Pacific: Poorly Protected
The Social Outlook for Asia and the Pacific lays out new arguments and evidence for the critical and urgent need to increase investment in people, particularly in social protection. Developing countries in Asia and the Pacific only spend about 3.7 per cent of GDP on social protection, compared to...
Read MoreMapping Just Transition(s) to a Low-Carbon World
Just Transition—the idea that justice and equity must form an integral part of the transition towards a low-carbon world—is increasingly being mobilized both to counter the idea that protecting the environment and protecting jobs are incompatible, and to broaden the debate to justice-related issues such as the kinds of...
Read MoreThe Global Rise of Social Cash Transfers
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) proclaimed the equality of all human beings in dignity and rights. The right to social security, however, has been taken more seriously only since the 2000s, through calls for ‘Social Security for All’ and ‘Leaving no-one behind’. The book investigates a major...
Read MoreSocial Protection, Food Security and Nutrition in Six African Countries
Evaluations of social protection interventions across Africa often register significant success in improving household food security indicators, but little or no improvement in individual nutritional outcomes. One reason is under-coverage of poor people; another is the low value of social transfers. This paper reviews experiences with social protection in...
Read MoreThe Role of Cash Transfers in Social Protection, Humanitarian Response and Shock- Responsive Social Protection
Cash transfers have expanded rapidly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world in the past decade. The contexts in which they are implemented have also diversified; while cash transfers were mostly adopted initially as central elements of social protection systems, they have become increasingly popular as a...
Read MoreSocial Protection and Humanitarian Response: What is the Scope for Integration?
Given the rise in humanitarian emergencies triggered by climate-related risks and conflict, often in contexts of chronic poverty and vulnerability, the international community is calling for the better integration of short-term humanitarian assistance and longer-term development interventions. In this context, social protection is increasingly portrayed as a policy tool...
Read MoreGender and Social Protection: What does WDR 2019 have to offer?
The World Bank’s World Development Reports (WDRs), with some notable exceptions, are not known for their gender analysis. Even then, the 2019 edition, The Changing Nature of Work, stands out as remarkably gender blind. For starters, it almost completely ignores one of the most invisible and deeply gendered features...
Read MoreIncheon Strategy to “Make the Right Real” for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific
Governments of the ESCAP region gathered in Incheon, Republic of Korea, from 29 October to 2 November 2012 to chart the course of the new Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities for the period 2013 to 2022. They were joined by representatives of civil society organizations, including...
Read MoreYour Toolkit on ILO Convention 189 – The Domestic Workers’ Convention
WIEGO and the IDWF partnered to write this toolkit to support International Domestic Workers Foundation affiliates in their efforts to make the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) real for domestic workers. The Toolkit describes Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and its history and provides three steps on...
Read MoreInformal is the New Normal: Improving the lives of workers at risk of being left behind
The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has given a new urgency to efforts to confront deficits in employment. We take up the call to improve the working conditions of informal workers who face being left behind given that processes of formalisation are unlikely to incorporate them in...
Read MoreOlder Women’s Economic Empowerment: A review of the literature
Women’s economic empowerment has gained increasing attention within the global development agenda in recent years, bolstered by the adoption of a range of relevant targets within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. Yet the specific experiences of older women often remain underexplored and unrecognised, leaving them invisible to...
Read MoreBetween Work and Care: Older women’s economic empowerment
Women’s economic empowerment has gained increasing attention within the global development agenda in recent years, bolstered by the adoption of a range of relevant targets within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. Yet the specific experiences of older women often remain underexplored and unrecognised, leaving them invisible to...
Read MoreAre Human Rights Relevant to Economic Inequality? A response through the lens of social protection
In recent months, a debate has flared in academic and philanthropy circles around the extent to which the human rights framework can serve to challenge rising economic inequality. Naysayers can be found on different sides of the ideological spectrum. Some, such as Yale historian Samuel Moyn, argue that the...
Read MoreHow to Implement Inclusive Social Protection Schemes
This is the third in a series of policy guides developed to support policymakers and practitioners in Asia and the Pacific in their efforts to strengthen social protection. This policy guide explains the administrative processes, organizational policies and systems required to implement tax-financed social protection, focusing on schemes providing...
Read MoreSocial protection for older persons: Policy trends and statistics 2017–19
This policy paper: (i) provides a global overview of the organization of pension systems and their contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG); (ii) monitors SDG indicator 1.3.1 for older persons, analyses trends and recent policies in 192 countries, including the extension of legal and effective coverage in a...
Read MoreSecond-pillar Pension: Re-reforms in Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Macedonia, Romania, and Slovakia Benefit Payouts amidst Continuing Retrenchment (ESS Working Paper No. 72)
Most analyses of Central and Eastern Europe’s (CEE) second-pension pillars focus on Hungary and Poland, the first CEE governments to establish such pillars (1997-1999) and the first to retrench them (2010-2011). However, as the regional front-runners in second-pillar creation and termination, Hungary and Poland differ in some important ways...
Read MoreThe Reversal of Pension Privatization in Venezuela (ESS Working Paper No. 71)
This paper documents the reversal of pension privatization and the reforms that took place in the 1990s and 2000s in Venezuela. The report analyses the political economy of different reform proposals, and the characteristics of the new pension system, including laws enacted, governance and social security administration, social dialogue,...
Read MoreRepeal of the Privatization of the Pension System in Nicaragua (ESS Working Paper No. 70)
This paper documents the reversal of pension privatization and the reforms that took place in the 1990s and 2000s in Nicaragua. The report analyses the political economy of different reform proposals, and the characteristics of the new pension system, including laws enacted, governance and social security administration, social dialogue,...
Read MoreThe Reversal of Pension Privatization in Ecuador (ESS Working Paper No. 69)
This paper documents the reversal of pension privatization and the reforms that took place in the 1990s and 2000s in Ecuador. The report analyses the political economy of different reform proposals, and the characteristics of the new pension system, including laws enacted, coverage, benefit adequacy, financing and contribution rates,...
Read MoreReversing Pension Privatization: The Case of Polish Pension Reform and Re-Reforms (ESS Working Paper No. 68)
This paper documents the reversal of pension privatization and the reforms that took place in the 1990s and 2000s in Poland. The report analyses the political economy of different reform proposals, and the characteristics of the new pension system, including laws enacted, coverage, benefit adequacy, financing and contribution rates,...
Read MoreReversing Pension Privatization in Kazakhstan (ESS Working Paper No. 67)
This paper documents the reversal of pension privatization and the reforms that took place in the 1990s and 2000s in Kazakhstan. The report analyses the political economy of different reform proposals, and the characteristics of the new pension system, including laws enacted, coverage, benefit adequacy, financing and contribution rates,...
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