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Social Protection
The IDS Centre for Social Protection aims to provide a global focus for research, policy analysis, and capacity building on social protection.
The Centre's vision is of a world in which every person is adequately protected against adverse personal circumstances, life cycle hazards, and shocks that threaten their livelihoods, security and development.
The Centre brings together researchers from the Vulnerability and Poverty Team at IDS encompassing a broad range of disciplinary approaches, together with partners from five regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia.
Research Agenda
Social protection has recently risen rapidly up the policy agenda of many governments, donors and NGOs. In poor countries with weak administrative capacity, various social protection interventions that provide some degree of social assistance or social insurance are being adopted in contexts where social security systems are not yet fully developed. However, there are many challenges to the extension of social protection to all:
- Social protection is weakly theorised and lacks agreed conceptual frameworks and terminology. The challenge is to strengthen the linkages between social protection policy and multidimensional approaches to the analysis of poverty, risk and vulnerability.
- There is much innovative work on design, delivery and evaluation of social protection interventions, but creating open, independent and critical networks to share experiences across regions and countries remains a key challenge.
- There is a need to link research and advisory work with capacity building and advocacy, to support campaigns for the right to social protection, and to ensure that activists have the information and analytical tools to do so effectively and credibly.
The Centre for Social Protection aims to advance thinking and practice in all these areas, by:
- Undertaking theoretical and applied research
- Providing advice to decision-makers on the design and implementation of social protection policies and programmes
- Evaluating social protection interventions
- Delivering training courses on social protection
- Sharing lessons and ideas by participating in conferences, workshops and seminars.
To find out more about the centre, please e-mail socialprotection@ids.ac.uk
News »»
Social Protection January Issue 11 Health and Social Protection
Published: 29 Jan 2010
The impacts of ill-health on individual and household livelihoods and vulnerability cannot be underestimated. This edition examines ways in which social protection measures can be designed and implemented in ways that can help reduce health related vulnerabilities.
Breaking the oil curse in the Niger Delta
Published: 30 Oct 2009
Will cash-transfers into citizen’s pockets solve the region’s problems?
Naila Kabeer lead author of UN world survey of women in development!
Published: 15 Oct 2009Professor Naila Kabeer is the lead author of the new UN report on the World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, which will be launched at UN headquarters in New York on the 26th October.
Social Protection October Issue 10 Seasonality and Social Protection
Published: 5 Oct 2009
As seasons across the world appear to become more unpredictable, the impacts of seasonal shocks and stresses on poor people are increasing. This edition examines ways in which social protection measures can be designed and implemented in ways that can help reduce these seasonal vulnerabilities.
UNICEF's Joint Statement on Child-Sensitive Social Protection
Published: 21 Aug 2009
UNICEF and a number of partners recently came together to consider and outline the importance of furthering social protection and ensuring it is child-sensitive.
Events
There are no current Events
Latest Publications on Social Protection »
- Arnall, A. (2009) 'Roundtable on Climate Change and Social Protection'
- Devereux, S. (2010) 'Seasonal Food Crises and Social Protection in Africa', Routledge
- Cook, S. and Kabeer, N. (2009) 'A Global Review of Social Protection'
- Arnall, A., Furtado, J., Ghazoul, J. and de Swardt, C. (2009) 'Informal Safety Nets: the Case of a South African Informal Settlement', Development Southern Africa 3.21:443-460
- Davies, M., Barrientos, A., Devereux, S., Hickey,S, Sabates-Wheeler, R, Guenther, B. and Macauslan, I. (2009) 'DFID Social Transfers Evaluation Summary Report', IDS Research Report 60, Brighton: IDS
- Sumner, A. and Jones, N. (2009) 'Designing child-sensitive policies', id21 highlights , Brighton: IDS
- Haddad, L., Sumner, A., Lindstrom, J. et al (2008) 'Improving the nutrition status of children and women', id21 Insights 73, Brighton: IDS
Social Protection projects at IDS »»
- Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) in Nigeria - Analytical study to assist with the design of a functional health and education conditioned cash transfer for the poor in Nigeria. (2005 - 2006)
- Developing a Social Protection Index for Asia - This project is part of the Asian Development Bank's efforts to address a research gap by quantifying social protection activities throughout Asia by creating a social protection index (SPI) using four summary indicators. (2005 - 2005)
- Development of a Social Protection Strategy for Pakistan - The objective of this work was to assist the GoP with developing a national social protection strategy, involving public and private initiatives that can contribute, both directly and indirectly, to growth, poverty reduction and human security in Pakistan. (2006 - 2006)
- Dowa Emergency Cash Transfers (DECT) - IDS were commissioned to carry out an external evaluation of the DECT programme. (Ongoing)
- Employment, informality and poverty - Joint project led by Sarah Cook, together with Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), to develop collaborative research on informal employment (2007 - 2010)
- Ethiopia Productive Safety Net Programme - Two years after IDS led an assessment of the PSNP after its first year of operation, IDS and its partners have been commissioned to undertake a new study, to provide an update and analysis of key aspects of the PSNP programme. (2008 - 2008)
- FACT Malawi - Concern commissioned IDS to carry out an external evaluation of the FACT programme in Malawi (2006 - 2006)
- Food Supply Crisis and Food Security in Malawi - Following the food crisis in Malawi in 2002, Action Aid commissioned IDS to try to unravel what went wrong and identify appropriate policies and responses to prevent similar crises in the future. (2002 - 2002)
- Gender and Social Protection in the Informal Economy - This commissioned study brought together the existing literature on gender and social protection in the informal economy with a view to drawing out lessons on good practice to inform ongoing policy discussions. (2005 - 2005)
- Gender Equality and Extension of Social Protection - IDS was commissioned to study the nature and causes of women's exclusion from social protections coverage (2010 - 2001)
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