A brief history of Malawi’s Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP)
This paper presents some of the challenges the SCTP faced between 2006 and 2016. It starts by presenting the relevant features, actors and episodes of the social protection system for the reader to understand the SCTP and its main operational challenges. It then proceeds to describe the governance and...
Read MoreHow Does Resilience Change over Time? Tracking post-disaster recovery using mobile phone surveys
Knowing how climate hazards affect people’s resilience over time is crucial in designing more effective development and humanitarian interventions. This is particularly important in post-disaster contexts, where people’s livelihood opportunities and wellbeing changes rapidly during the long road to recovery. Yet, to date, our knowledge of resilience is largely...
Read MoreAspirations matter: what young people in Ghana think about work
Aspirations play a vital role in shaping young people’s life choices, particularly when it comes to making decisions about education and jobs. However, youth employment programmes – which seek to provide young people with the skills and opportunities needed to secure employment and achieve higher living standards – rarely...
Read MoreA contemporary view of ‘family’ in international human rights law and implications for the SDGs
This paper examines the interplay between the obligations related to the ‘family’ that States have assumed through various human rights treaties adopted over the decades, and the recent commitments undertaken under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. International human rights instruments recognize the ‘family; as the fundamental unit of society...
Read MoreMaking apprenticeships and workplace learning inclusive of persons with disabilities
Governments, skills development institutions, employers and other stakeholders – including workers’ organizations and those of persons with disabilities – have a role in promoting a positive environment that allows persons with disabilities to be fully productive in the workplace. Examples from around the world demonstrate how disability-inclusive apprenticeships and...
Read MoreAdolescents with disabilities: enhancing resilience and delivering inclusive development
Around the world, there are between 93 million and 150 million children and adolescents with disabilities. An estimated 80% live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where 80% of persons with disabilities live below the poverty line. While we know that adolescents with disabilities are far more likely than...
Read MoreAdolescents with disabilities: Enhancing resilience and delivering inclusive development
Around the world, there are between 93 million and 150 million children and adolescents living with disabilities. Most of those children (80%) live in the global South, where 80% of persons with disabilities live below the poverty line. Children and adolescents with disabilities are far more likely than their...
Read MoreExploring new policy pathways: How to overcome obstacles and contradictions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda
Building on the content of the previous reports, the Spotlight Report 2018 dives more deeply into the policies, resources and actions that will actually be necessary to implement the 2030 Agenda, based in part on proposals and ideas that have already been discussed or attempted in different parts of...
Read MoreThe role and vulnerabilities of older people in drought in East Africa Progress, challenges and opportunities for a more inclusive humanitarian response
Whilst older people have special needs, they also have unique skills, experiences and roles within their families, communities and societies. These roles continue to a certain extent during droughts, though household burdens may increase as younger adults have migrated or are grazing livestock further away. At the same time, droughts...
Read MoreWater and sanitation, migration and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Key Messages Migration isn’t driven by a lack of water and sanitation services, but providing services can support successful migration. The barriers faced by migrants make achieving the SDGs’ ambitions of universal access more challenging. Challenges stem from failures in governance, not the amount of water available, numbers of...
Read MoreEnergy, migration and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Key messages Migration can contribute to improving access to reliable, affordable modern energy services (SDG target 7.1) through higher incomes for migrants and the sending of remittances. The informal or irregular status of many migrants is a barrier to universal access to modern energy services. Migrants in informal settlements...
Read MoreThe household and individual-level economic impacts of cash transfer programmes in sub-Saharan Africa
Results from seven recently completed rigorous impact evaluations of government-run unconditional social cash transfer programmes in sub-Saharan Africa show that these programmes have significant positive impacts on the livelihoods of beneficiary households. In Zambia, the Child Grant programme had large and positive impacts across an array of income generating...
Read MoreQualitative research and analyses of the economic impacts of cash transfer programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa
Support for (CT) programmes has been growing in sub-Saharan Africa over the last ten years. Since late 2004, the African Union has provided encouragement to countries to develop their own social policy frameworks, with a Plan of Action supported by governments that commits member states to expanding and empowering...
Read MoreMyth-busting? Confronting Six Common Perceptions about Unconditional Cash Transfers as a Poverty Reduction Strategy in Africa
In this paper we summarize evidence on six perceptions associated with cash transfer programming, using eight rigorous evaluations conducted on large-scale government unconditional cash transfers in sub-Saharan Africa, under the Transfer Project. Specifically, we investigate if transfers: 1) induce higher spending on alcohol or tobacco; 2) are fully consumed...
Read MoreCare Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work
The report analyses the ways in which unpaid care work is recognized and organized, the extent and quality of care jobs and their impact on the well-being of individuals and society. A key focus of this report is the persistent gender inequalities in households and the labour market, which...
Read MoreUniversal Basic Income proposals in light of ILO standards: Key issues and global costing (ESS ─ Working Paper No. 62)
This paper reviews proposals for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in light of ILO standards. Some UBI proposals have the potential to advance equity and social justice, while others may result in a net welfare loss. The ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation (No. 202) includes a number of principles...
Read MoreLabor Institutions and Development Under Globalization
Labor market regulation is a controversial area of public policy in both developed and developing countries. Mainstream economic analysis traditionally portrays legal interventions providing for minimum wages, unemployment insurance and (often only a modicum of) employment protection as ‘luxuries’ developing countries cannot afford. After decades of de-regulatory advice, international...
Read MoreFrom principles to practice: A method for identifying income sufficiency when applying International Legal Standards (ESS — Working Paper No. 61)
This paper gives content to the idea of a minimum income as reflected in ILO Conventions and Recommendations. It also aims to provide some practical guidance as to how such minima can best be operationalized. The practical purpose of this analysis is to define a reference income level that...
Read MoreA Simplified Social Protection Scheme for Micro-entrepreneurs
To encourage entrepreneurship and reduce social and tax evasion, the Government of France introduced a simplified mechanism in 2009. It facilitated the creation of micro-enterprises, collected taxes and encouraged affiliation of self-employed workers to the social security system. The scheme has led to the creation of 911,000 micro-enterprises till...
Read MoreBuilding an adequate U.S. labor and social protection system for the 21st century (ESS ─ Working Paper No. 60)
This paper reviews the erosion of labor and social protections for U.S. workers and households over recent decades. It discusses the causes and the relative weight of different elements of the erosion in order to bring clarity to the discussion of needed reforms. It proposes a framework of policy...
Read MoreIs biometric technology in social protection programmes illegal or arbitrary? An analysis of privacy and data protection (ESS ─ Working Paper No. 59)
Social protection programmes require processing significant data amounts, including often-sensitive information such as household assets, health status and physical or intellectual disabilities. Increasingly, social protection programmes use unique, intimate biometric-technology data such as fingerprints, iris structure and face topologies. Inextricably linked to the individual body, they are more sensitive...
Read MoreInnovative approaches for ensuring universal social protection for the future of work
Social protection systems around the world face challenges to provide full and effective coverage for workers in all forms of employment, including those in “new” forms of employment. While some emerging work and employment arrangements may provide greater flexibility for workers and employers, they may lead to significant gaps...
Read MoreToward more inclusive measures of economic well-being: Debates and practices
This paper reviews debates and practice around the conventional and alternative measures of economic well-being. It presents alternative aggregate indicators, broadly referred to as “Beyond GDP”, that track non-market contributions to well-being, including household production and ecosystem services. Evaluating the major contending measures–Genuine Progress Indicator, Human Development Index, Happiness/lifeevaluation...
Read MoreThe architecture of digital labour platforms: Policy recommendations on platform design for worker well-being
Digital labour platforms connect workers with consumers of this work and provide the infrastructure and the governance conditions for the exchange of work and its compensation. Yet the architecture, or business model design, of digital labour platforms has important consequences for workers, affecting whether they are empowered or exploited...
Read MoreUniversal Social Protection Country Cases
Countries have used many options to finance universal social protection. Those options include: (i) re-allocating public expenditures (e.g., from financing public subsidies to financing specific programs); (ii) increasing tax revenues, including revenue generated from taxation of natural resources; (iii) using the reductions of debt or debt servicing; (iv) expanding...
Read More