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BUILD Social protection systems help individuals and families, especially the poor and vulnerable, cope with crises and shocks, find jobs, improve productivity, invest in the health and education of their children, and protect the aging population. Social protection programs are at the heart of boosting human capital for the world’s most vulnerable. They empower people to be healthy, pursue their education, and seek opportunity to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Social protection systems that are well-designed and implemented are powerful as they enhance human capital and productivity, reduce inequalities, build resilience and end the inter-generational cycle of poverty. Such systems and tools are transformative as they help the poor and most vulnerable mitigate economic and fiscal shocks and provide opportunity by giving them a chance to climb out of poverty and become productive members of society. When poor and vulnerable people have the opportunity to improve their lives and that of their families, they are less likely to move in search of a better life. Well-designed social protection programs are cost-effective, costing countries on average about 1.5% of GDP. PROTECT Social protection has been key to this effort and many countries have embraced social protection instruments such as safety net programs as a means of harnessing human capital. Apart from providing struggling families with supplemental income, social safety nets also increase access to information and services, improve productivity, protect the elderly, and support people while they look for work. The rapidly changing nature of work in countries at all income levels requires a dramatically new approach to social protection and labor policy, according to the report “Protecting All: Risk-Sharing for a Diverse and Diversifying World of Work”. It proposes an approach to worker protection and social security that is better adapted to an increasingly diverse and fluid world of work. EMPLOY Social protection helps people become productive and realize their human capital. The jobs agenda is at the forefront of the Human Capital Project. Every month, two million new young people join the work force—a challenge compounded by the fact that 200 million people are unemployed and looking for work. Of those working, 65% are stuck in low-productivity jobs. The disruptive impact of the COVID-19 crisis on workers, labor markets, and livelihoods has further underlined the importance of the jobs agenda. Preparing for the jobs of tomorrow, while making critical human capital investments today is a priority for achieving economic transformation in the poorest countries. As part of the HCP, the World Bank is supporting governments to equip the next generation of workers with the skills needed to tackle the types of jobs which the changing world of work will require. This also requires enabling workers to move from lower- to higher-productivity activities—led by a vibrant private sector and supported by public policy actions. UNIVERSAL SOCIAL PROTECTION The World Bank Group supports universal access to social protection, and it is central to its goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. Universal social protection coverage includes: providing social assistance through cash transfers to those who need them, especially children; benefits and support for people of working age in case of maternity, disability, work injury or for those without jobs; and pension coverage for the elderly. Assistance is provided through social insurance, tax-funded social benefits, social assistance services, public works programs and other schemes guaranteeing basic income security. Social protection systems, figure prominently in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Goal 1.3 calls for the implementation of “nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and vulnerable”. Since April 2020, the World Bank’s social protection operations have reached $12.5 billion, benefiting nearly one billion individuals globally. These resources support safety net programs, including cash transfers, public works, and school feeding programs. Together with universal social protection programs, targeted interventions play a valuable role in helping achieve universal protection. A new report “Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance: A New Look at Old Dilemmas” provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and costs of social protection targeting as well as the pros and cons of various targeting methods based on global experience in over 130 countries. Today, our social protection systems deliver social assistance and insurance to the poor and vulnerable, and link them to jobs, improve productivity, invest in the health and education of their children, and protect the aging population. While achievements in designing and promoting the adoption of social assistance programs and delivery systems have been made, investing heavily in initiatives to improve jobs and earnings opportunities, and the expansion of social insurance programs are equally important. COVID-19 Response Effective social protection systems are crucial to safeguarding the poor and vulnerable when crisis hits. In response to COVID-19, the World Bank Group is working fast to provide social protection interventions to protect the poor and vulnerable in developing countries from the adverse impacts of the pandemic.
During the pandemic the WBG has been leveraging existing social protection systems in countries to help families and businesses restore income, preserve livelihoods, and compensate for increasing prices and unexpected medical expenses. The World Bank is also continuing to help countries enhance the preparedness of their social protection systems and build resilience against future crises.
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Last Updated: Mar 28, 2022
The World Bank Group’s 10-year social protection and labor strategy (2012-22) lays out ways to deepen World Bank Group’s involvement, capacity, knowledge, and impact in delivering social protection programs. The strategy calls for a systematic approach that addresses fragmentation and duplication in programs, helping to create financing, governance and solutions tailored to countries’ context. The strategy also takes into account the importance of having well-functioning social safety nets, proven to reduce poverty and inequality, promote access to health and education among poor children, and empower women; and sustainable social insurance programs that help cushion the impact of crises on households. In addition, the strategy promotes effective policies for productive employment which help people gain access to labor markets and accumulate skills, both during recovery from economic crisis and in normal times. Finally, the strategy ensures that harnessing knowledge underpins the World Bank Group’s work on social protection by generating evidence and lessons to inform effective policies; promoting south-south knowledge exchange, and providing global leadership in research, analysis and data management. The Atlas of Social Protection with Indicators on Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) is the World Bank's premier compilation of Social Protection and Labor (SPL) indicators gathered from officially-recognized international household surveys in order to analyze the distributional and poverty impact of Social Protection and Labor programs. By harmonizing survey data for 126 countries, ASPIRE aims to meet the increasing demand on comparable and up-to-date SPL data from policymakers, practitioners and other country stakeholders, World Bank staff, other development organizations, researchers and civil society. Last Updated: Mar 28, 2022
In Niger, the national Wadata Talaka social safety net has rapidly scaled up its regular coverage from 50,000 to 400,000 poor urban and rural households (about 2.8 million people) to provide a one-off COVID emergency cash transfer to households. In a second phase from July 2021, 30,000 urban beneficiary households will be able to apply for additional cash assistance over 24 months. In Brazil, the World Bank helped strengthen the country’s conditional cash transfer program, the Bolsa Família Program (BFP), and its main delivery system, the Cadastro Único. Estimates show that social transfers, including both Bolsa Família and Social Pensions (Benefício de Prestação Continuada, BPC), accounted for a 58% decline in extreme poverty, a 30% decline in poverty, and a 41% fall in inequality between 2004 and 2014. BFP increased its coverage and improved its monitoring reaching with 47 million people its highest number of beneficiaries to that date. Furthermore, by the end of the project, all states harmonized their own cash transfers with Bolsa Família. There are 24 other federal programs using Cadastro Único to identify poor or vulnerable beneficiaries. School attendance by BFP beneficiary children (a condition for receiving the benefit) reached 91%, the highest level since the program’s introduction. External studies showed positive impacts of the program on human capital outcomes, resulting in higher levels of school enrollment and school progression and lower dropout rates. Positive impacts were also achieved on the health, nutrition, and survival of individuals, including significant reduction in the under-five mortality rate and decreases in the incidence of low birth weight. In Ethiopia, the Urban Productive Safety Net Project (UPSNP) made progress toward ensuring inclusive development outcomes for the country’s urban poor, reaching more than 600,000 beneficiaries of whom 60% are women. The project enabled beneficiaries to open bank accounts for the first time, resulting in more than $11.3 million in savings. Livelihood grants helped more than 50,000 people complete skills and financial literacy training to help them start small businesses and support their self-employment - one of the main pathways out of poverty. More than 60,000 people were linked to social services such as health insurance, education and housing support. More than 45 non-governmental organizations are providing services for the economic and social integration of people living in street situations. Neighborhood quality was improved through public works and promotion of urban agriculture. The project helped Ethiopia to develop the first management information system to capture data related to both urban and rural poor, which will serve as the overall monitoring system for safety nets in the country. Last Updated: Mar 28, 2022
The World Bank Group and the International Labour Organization (ILO) work together to achieve social protection for all. The partnership is expanding social protection measures worldwide as part of a global effort to combat poverty and rising income inequality. The World Bank receives support from the Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Rapid Social Response Adaptive and Dynamic Social Protection (RSR-ADSP) Umbrella Program. The program provides catalytic resources in small amounts to help low-income countries build social protection and labor systems, so that they are prepared for future crises. To date, the RSR-ADSP Umbrella Program has funded approximately 324 activities in over 100 hundred countries worldwide. Housed at the World Bank, the Partnership on Economic Inclusion (PEI) seeks to help increase the income and assets of extremely poor and vulnerable people by developing economic inclusion programs globally and contributing to evidence-based good practices that can be adapted to local conditions by governments and local or international agencies. The Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program (SASPP) supports the strengthening of adaptive social protection systems in six Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal), and currently covers more than 2.3 million people. The program enables individuals, households and societies to build resilience and better withstand the impacts of shocks that regularly afflict the sub-region, including those triggered by climate change (drought and floods), conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic. To strengthen countries’ social protection systems, the World Bank together with development partners launched the Inter-Agency Social Protection Assessments (ISPA). ISPA is a set of tools that help countries develop standardized delivery mechanisms in designing social protection systems, allowing for the effective and coordinated delivery of social protection programs to beneficiaries. Last Updated: Mar 28, 2022