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

2. 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
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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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