Institute of Development Studies

Call for papers for Social Protection for Social Justice Conference

The Centre for Social Protection at IDS is convening a 3-day conference on Social Protection for Social Justice next year in April. The conference aims to explore future directions for social protection that go beyond social safety nets and risk management. It will address broader concerns with redistributive equity and social injustice.

The conference will bring together 40-50 international participants, including academics and practitioners, as well as policymakers from both governmental and international bodies. The conference will be global in scope. The event aims to reflect on lessons from experience, advance current thinking, review good practice and consider policy options for the future.

How to submit your paper

Full details can be found using the link below. Abstracts of proposed papers (up to 500 words) are due by 30 September 2010 with all applicants being notified by 30 November 2010. The deadline for the complete paper is 28 February 2011.

CSP Social Protection Conference 2011 - Call for Papers (pdf)

About the conference

Although social protection has only been on the development policy agenda for a decade, it has achieved a great deal in this short time - but many challenges remain. In most countries, social protection is dominated by social assistance for people who are either chronically poor or affected by livelihood shocks. This is a vital safety net function, but it fails to recognise or address the underlying causes of poverty and vulnerability, which might require very different interventions.

Many people are poor because they are socially marginalised and discriminated against - ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, people living with HIV and AIDS. Is providing welfarist handouts the most effective way of addressing this social vulnerability? 'Transformative' approaches to social protection argue that it makes more sense to remove the sources of discrimination (through advocacy or legislation) than to compensate those affected. This implies a 'social justice' rather than a 'social welfare' policy agenda.

Social justice as a response to poverty and vulnerability remains relatively under-developed within social protection policies and programmes. One objective of this conference is to focus attention on the relationship between social protection and social justice. Inevitably, this requires engaging with politics and power, and this is reflected in the conference themes, which include 'constructing democratic governance: social protection and new social contracts', and 'social protection, inequality and redistributive justice'.

Social protection also needs to respond to emerging sources of vulnerability, and another important theme is 'social protection and sustainable adaptation to climate and environmental change', again with a focus on achieving socially just as well as environmentally sustainable outcomes.

The conference will be held on at the Institute of Development Studies on 13th to 15th April 2011.

For email updates

Anyone wanting email updates on the conference should register their interest by email to CSP-conference@ids.ac.uk.

Related Events

CSP Conference 2011: Social Protection for Social Justice

Dates: 13 Apr 2011 - 15 April 2011