Social Protection for Africa: The World Bank’s Approach by Maurizia Tovo, Lead Social Protection Specialist

Development of Social Protection at the World Bank Early 1990s - Structural adjustment programs accompanied by increased SP activity Late 1990s – Need for reform in unsustainable welfare states in Eastern Europe, financial market crises prompt new SP focus 2000 – WB Social Protection and Labor Sector Strategy 2001 - AFRICA SP strategy “Dynamic risk management and the poor”  from coping to reducing causes and consequences of risk Of note: Social Protection and Labor sector of the Bank was created, as part of the HD network, in 1996.

Social Protection in Africa 2001: “Dynamic risk management and the poor”  from coping to reducing causes and consequences of risk Capacity building  assist development of national SP strategies: started in 2002 with 20 countries, finished in 2005 with 11

SP Principles for SSA Focus on the most compelling risks, and the most vulnerable groups (PRIORITIZE!) Build upon existing successful informal risk management strategies of poor households Combine different types of instruments Build partnerships in finance and delivery This is from our Africa SP strategy – The last two sound a bit wishy-washy, but I leave them in b.c I actually think they’re important - long-term dynamic costs include things like choosing to plant low-yielding seed varieties, rather than higher-yielding, but riskier, varieties – these can be costs to the individual and/or to the country

Operationalizing SP Risk-reducing public investment Eg, spending on health, education, water&sanitation, rural infrastructure Community-driven development Targeted social safety nets Direct transfer of resources, or subsidies, for the most vulnerable Labor markets and job creation Focus on youth employment, the informal sector, and skills training I’ve combined the Bank’s general SP priorities, as outlined in the strategy, with those for Africa (A) Risk reducing public investment: (i) protect public spending on basic education, health, and other services utilized mainly by the poor; (ii) realize that this might not be enough to guarantee access for poor, and add targeted incentives (eg, abolishing fees); (iii) promote rural infrastructure, communications, transportation, and storage facilities; and (iv) greater investments to address income losses due to illnesses that are linked to malnutrition, lack of access to safe water, and poor sanitation (B) community-driven development - as mentioned in the meeting Wed for Setareh, one of the few things that actually works in some of these countries! (C) Social safety nets: basically, additional (to sustained public investments) assistance to the most vulnerable households; can include direct targeted transfers of resources (conditional cash transfers, public works programs) or targeted fee waivers/subsidies (eg, in education). -----targeting is very important, but can be quite difficult in SSA (for instance, ex ante means testing is pretty much impossible) – so have to rely on geographic targeting, community-based targeting (ie, get communities involved in targeting), and self-targeting (eg, through public works programs) (D) Promotion of ‘active labor market policies’ to match skills with demand, promoting labor regulation reforms, designing unemployment benefit schemes, etc….perhaps most of note for SSA: (i) skills training and development; (ii) labor market analysis on the informal sector; and (iii) youth employment

Supporting SP Analytical work Capacity building Risk and vulnerability assessments (RVA) Topic-specific studies (youth labor markets, insurance schemes…) Capacity building Assist development of national SP strategies: started in 2002 with 20 countries, finished in 2005 with 11 - For insurance scheme analysis, you could site Alex Preker’s work on health insurance in W Africa, or an ‘African regional study on weather-based insurance’ (using weather data to provide countercyclical financing for safety netsa mechanism that was used in an Ethiopian project called Productive Safety Nets) - Of note: social funds account for 50% of our SP portfolio in Africa; I don’t think labor market interventions account for much

Where the money goes Region Social Funds Safety Nets Pensions Labor Markets Total AFRICA 621 433 56 440 1,550 Eeast Asia 19 189 38 246 ECA 386 454 691 778 2,309 Latin Am. 36 1,737 993 1,452 4,218 MNA 80 71 65 103 319 S. ASIA 517 232 317 1,066 1,142 3,401 2,037 3,128 9,708

Trends Shift focus from crisis response to institutionalized SP mechanisms Expand the SP agenda to include orphans and vulnerable children, people with disabilities, unemployed youth, and refugees and IDPs Promote a multi-sectoral approach to SP Dedicate more resources to evaluating the effectiveness of decentralized social protection schemes (specifically, conditional cash transfers and micro-insurance) NB – you could also make this slide into a ‘best practice’ or ‘lessons learned’ type slide – but I’m not really sure what those lessons are for SP in Africa….and by the way, everything here I’ve just made up (although I don’t think it sounds any more bullshit-y than what the reports come up with), so feel free to replace with whatever you think

Food Price Crisis: Priorities for Response SP: Ensure food security through targeted safety nets AGR: Stimulate short- and medium-term food production MACRO: Reduce tariffs/taxes on imports, and lifting bans on exports Global Food Crisis Response Facility $1.2 billion, including $200 M of grants for especially vulnerable countries Cash transfers is supposedly the ideal, as it (i) increases purchasing power of poor; (ii) does not provide disincentives for food production; and (iii) doesn’t reduce income of poor farmers --- however, I have also heard that it raises food prices. Food aid works where (i) the poor can’t get access to cash transfers, for whatever reason (can’t participate in public works, no administration for a cash-transfer program in the area…); or (ii) there is not enough food on the market