Transforming Social Protection: Human Wellbeing and Social Justice
Organization(s): IDS
Author: J. Allister McGregor, Stephen Devereux
Year: 2014
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This article calls for a moment of pause to consider the current direction of social protection
thinking and practice. It introduces a special issue in which a range of authors explore the relationship
between social protection and social justice. The article argues that the currently technocratic approach to social protection will neither be sustainable as a form of development intervention, nor produce sustainable reductions in poverty. The analysis takes us to the ontological heart of the technocratic approach and highlights the inadequacy of approaches based on methodological individualism for achieving sustainable and more socially just development outcomes. Using a human wellbeing framework and combining this with the idea of transformative social protection, the article proposes that there are different ways of conceiving, designing and implementing social protection so that they are better able to contribute to the promotion of social justice in specific developing country contexts.
Related Key Issues
Social protection programmes must be available to all individuals without discrimination of any kind. Universal social protection systems – those which provide benefits to all residents without conditions – are the best way for States to meet their human rights obligations to ensure that there is no discrimination in the selection of beneficiaries. Further reading: […]
Related Principles
States parties to major human rights instruments related to economic, social and cultural rights such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) have an immediate minimum core obligation to ensure the satisfaction of, at the very least, minimum essential levels of all economic, social and cultural rights such as the right […]
Meaningful and effective participation of rights holders must be a key component of any social protection system. This is what builds trust and public support behind schemes and ensures that there is a sense of ownership. The participation of right holders is important during the social protection policy making processes but also as regards the […]