Timo Voipio’s contribution to this IDS Bulletin is useful on two different levels. First, it sketches out some of the main elements of the OECD’s DAC–POVNET thinking on social protection, as it has emerged from ongoing discussions carried out by its Task Force on
Risk, Vulnerability and Social Protection.
And second, it contains an interesting sub-plot about competing approaches to social protection, and the compromises entailed when institutional actors with somewhat different philosophies and agendas come together to agree a common approach to the challenge of social protection in poor countries.
This is made more interesting by the fact that the actors in question, as members of the club of the world’s richest countries, include the largest and most powerful donor governments, and the OECD-DAC is one of the few places where many of them agree to participate in dialogue.
It is from the interests and perspective of these countries that the dialogue takes place and it is only once the basic elements of a common framework have been agreed, however tentatively, that development partners in the Global South are brought into the discussion.
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