The Public Pursuit of Secure Welfare: Background Paper on International Development Institutions, Social Protection & Developing Countries - Dr Anna McCord, Research Associate, ODI

This report provides an overview of the development of the conceptual framework underlying social protection programming and policy among the key international development institutions active in this sector.

In order to limit its scope this report assumes a narrow definition of social protection, focusing on social security, in the form of social assistance and social insurance, with a focus on the former, as the most feasible large scale option in low income, highly informalised economies.

This report is intended to inform discussion on the post MDG debate, and to explore the background to the convergence and polarization apparent within the social protection discourse. To this end the report has two parts. The first addresses the broad question of where we are now and how we got here, reviewing the prominence of social protection in the post MDG debate, the World Bank’s new ‘vision’, announced earlier this year by its new president Jim Kim1 that brings inequality into the frame alongside residual poverty, and the European welfarist vision which underlies the SPF. It also attempts to provide an overview of the key actors, and a historical view of the development of key institutional perspectives, as well as developing country perspectives. The second part then outlines key policy and programming challenges and identifies a number of opportunities for joint action in relation to future programme design and policy dialogue.

The report is written from a perspective informed by the recent adoption of ILO Recommendation 202, and so takes the Social Protection Floor, and the provision of a minimum income, to be the desirable form of provision, in line with the guaranteed minimum income approach which characterizes the European welfare state. At the same time, although the practical and fiscal constraints to the realization of such provision on a large scale in many developing countries and most low income countries is noted, as are the political challenges to such provision.