TABLE 1 Proposed social protection–related targets under the United Nations Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goal
1 2
3 End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Social protection–related target
Implement nationally social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve coverage of the poor and vulnerable.
Ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnera- ble situations including infants, to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food all year round.
Achieve universal health coverage (UHC), including financial risk protec- tion, access to quality essential health care services, and access to safe, effective, quality, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.
Source: United Nations Open Working Group Proposal for Sustainable Development Goals,
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/focussdgs.html.
Most countries have programs that can be clas-
sified as falling under social protection. Tese can have a significant impact on reducing poverty. But there is inadequate coverage of the population, especially in low income countries. Of course beter targeting of a given budget will enhance the poverty reduction of social protection. Yet for many coun- tries, especially low income countries, the problem is one of adequacy of budgetary resources. Beyond targeting and budgetary resources, social protection programs also face a series of design challenges that need to be addressed, and they need to be seen as a system rather than as individual programs. Te first step for countries and for the interna-
tional community should be to institute a Social Protection Assessment Program (SPAP) for each country, led by the country’s government with sup- port from development partners. Analogous to the Financial Sector Assessment Program of the Inter- national Monetary Fund and the World Bank, such an assessment would look at the social protection programs as a collectivity. Trough “stress test- ing” with respect to a range of micro-level risks and macro-level crises, SPAP would assess the system as a whole not only as a poverty-reduction device but as a safety net. For example, the assessment would ask whether the system as a whole can provide support in the face of a drought or an external economic cri- sis that affected the local economy. Based on such an analysis, the assessment would identify gaps and rec- ommend additions, subtractions, and improvements to the design of individual programs and the system as a whole.
Such an assessment would in turn lead to a spe-
cific program of investments to strengthen the sys- tem to deal with a range of individual-level shortfalls and risks as well as national-level shocks. Most of the resources for these improvements in the first instance will have to come from the outside, espe- cially for low income countries. However, just as important for reforming and building up the collec- tivity of programs as a system is the rapid response to the financing needed when national-level shocks hit a country. For this, a global facility is appropri- ate. A number of instruments are currently avail- able, such as the “deferred drawdown option” in International Bank for Reconstruction and Devel- opment loans that disburse when certain triggers are breached, confirming that a crisis is at hand. For low income countries, the International Develop- ment Association has a Crisis Response Window, but more is needed to develop the facility further and to streamline it to provide an automatic response when a crisis is identified.26 Broadly construed, social protection—encom-
passing elements of both insurance and targeted transfers to the poorest and most vulnerable—is now recognized as a cornerstone of development policy. Tis is especially true given the greater degrees of economic and noneconomic risks faced by developing countries and their populations in the wake of global integration and climate change. National governments supported by the interna- tional community need to design efficient programs as a system and provide adequate finance for social protection. ■
MITIGATING RISK 39
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