تصور تخطیطى مقترح للحد من معوقات تطبیق برامج الحمایة الاجتماعیة بالوحدات الاجتماعیة الحضریة

This study interrogated the resourcing component of social protection for the economic empowerment of the elderly in Koboko District; with critical attention to the sources of funding, factors determining the accessibility of the available schemes, and possible strategies for their access. The study employed a qualitative approach anchored on interpretive phenomenology as the main overriding design. A total of 18 participants were engaged in the study and they were selected using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, focused group discussion, and observation; and analyzed using ATLAS.ti Version 8 based on the thematic, narrative and content analysis. Findings indicated that those who benefited from the scheme perceived the social protection programme positively and those who did not perceived social protection as a political programme based on government and political interests. Accessibility of the programme was also marred by delays and limited funding as well as technical hiccups. It was recommended that the social protection programmes should be redesigned to favour all the vulnerable elderly. Government, under the Office of the Prime Minister, should strengthen coordination and implementation mechanisms of the social protection programmes to support the elderly, and also pursue a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement so as to support the existing government social protection programmes and boost the resourcing component.

This study intends to examine the impact of current health expenditure, domestic government health expenditure, government education expenditure, social protection, population growth, and foreign direct investment (FDI) on human capital formation in the context of Pakistan. This study utilized skill and health to measure human capital. The study utilized annual data for the period of 1990–2020 and data has been extracted from World Development Indicators (WDI) and World Bank. The study utilized auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test to examine long-run co-integration among defined variables. Furthermore, the study employed ARDL Model to obtain long-run and short-run empirical estimates for modeled variables. The results of this study indicated that current health expenditure (CHE), domestic government health expenditure (DGHE), government education expenditures (GEE), foreign direct expenditure (FDI), and social protection program (SP) have a positive and significant association with human capital in term of primary, secondary, and tertiary education attainment and life expectancy at birth. Moreover, domestic government spending on health and education, and social protection program significantly decreases child mortality in Pakistan. Furthermore, this study found that population growth has a negative and significant association with primary attainment. The findings of this study suggest that the Government of Pakistan should allocate more of its budget for health, education, and social protection programs to uplift its human capital.

Social protection programmes are designed to help vulnerable populations - including pastoralists - maintain a basic level of well-being, manage risk, and cope with negative shocks. Theory suggests that differential targeting according to poverty status can increase the reach and effectiveness of budgeted social protection programmes. Chronically poor households benefit most from social protection designed to help them meet their basic needs and make vital investments necessary to graduate from poverty. Vulnerable non-destitute households benefit from protection against costly temporary shocks, but do not necessarily need regular assistance. Welfare gains occur when a comprehensive social protection programme considers the needs of both types of households. The authors use evidence-based understanding of poverty dynamics in the pastoralist-based economy of northern Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands as a case study to discuss and compare the observed impacts of two different social protection schemes on heterogeneous pastoralist households: a targeted, unconditional, cash-transfer programme designed to support the poorest, and an index-based livestock insurance programme, which acts as a productive 'safety net' to help stem a descent into poverty and increase resilience. Both types of social protection scheme have been shown to decrease poverty, improve food security and protect child health. However, the behavioural response for asset accumulation varies with the type of protection and the household's unique situation. Poor households that receive cash transfers retain and accumulate assets quickly. Insured households, who are typically vulnerable yet not destitute, protect existing herds and invest more in the livestock they already own. The authors argue that differential targeting increases programme efficiency, and discuss Kenya's current approach to implementing differentially targeted social protection.

Social protection (SP) has been demonstrated as an effective tool against poverty and severe hunger. In Ghana, SP interventions have been employed to address vulnerability to poverty since 1965. Nevertheless, its potential for enhancing nutrition has hardly been explored. To harness the cross-sectoral benefits of scaling up nutrition-sensitive actions in Ghana, the national development planning commission requested an assessment of nutrition linkages across existing SP policies and programmes. The present paper presents gaps and opportunities for improving nutrition-sensitivity of existing SP programming in Ghana. The evidence draws heavily on desk review of available published and grey literature. The data show that SP provides an entry point for mainstreaming nutrition into other programmes. However, designing and coupling SP programmes with nutrition programmes remain a challenge in Ghana. Local SP interventions are predominantly designed as standalone services and therefore are implemented independent of each other. To increase synergy between SP and nutrition, including nutrition as an explicit objective of SP policies/strategies is recommended.

The paper presents an overview of the situation of women in informal employment in Latin America and their access to social protection, and examines key public policy issues in extending social protection to this group. Informal employment has risen in Latin America in the last two decades. This is a product of economic crises, labour market liberalisation, and welfare reforms. There is an important gender dimension to informality. Women are over-represented in informal employment, and they are also over-represented in lower paid and precarious occupational groups within informal employment. As social protection entitlements in the region are largely dependent on employment status, women in informal employment are often excluded from formal social protection programmes. Reform of labour market institutions and social protection programmes is needed to extend social protection to this group. Integrated policy interventions aimed at supporting women's life course decisions could have an important effect in reducing their over-representation in informal employment.

The global forum on nutrition-sensitive social protection programs, convened by securenutrition and the Russian Federation, brought together 150 donors, implementers, and country leaders to identify practical ways to link the nutrition and social protection agendas. This paper served as a springboard for discussion at the global forum, and represents a synthesis of evidence from nearly 120 references with a heavy focus on program evaluations. The reach of social protection programs has grown extensively since the 1980s. Recent World Bank estimates show 64 countries running conditional cash transfers as opposed to only two in 1997 and the rapid doubling of countries in Africa implementing unconditional cash transfers - from 20 to 40 in just the last five years. This paper finds that social protection transfers tend to increase household budget devoted to food - often more than other income sources - and highlights evidence that transfers can change diet composition and quality. At the same time, the overall effects of income on nutrition outcomes are not clear and vary by country experience and across studies. Evidence indicates that knowledge of proper hygiene and feeding practices does not necessarily increase alongside purchasing power, hence the rationale to specifically encourage or program behavioral change communication.

Conventional social protection programmes that fail to intentionally consider climate change effects in their design and delivery are criticised for not addressing the root causes of vulnerability to climate change, particularly for rural livelihoods. Increasingly, we see a shift to adaptive social protection programming to address climate vulnerability, which incorporates transformative objectives. However, there is a dearth of research into the transformative effects of adaptive approaches. Addressing this gap, we employ a “rights-based approach” to assess how adaptive social protection affords greater transformative resilience and wellbeing outcomes over conventional social protection programming. Taking Bangladesh as our case, empirical data show that although social protection programming incorporates some transformative elements, their impacts in terms of subjective resilience and wellbeing outcomes are limited. These limited outcomes result from prevailing clientelism, inadequate benefits paid to participants, lack of beneficiary participation in decision-making, and failure to address unequal gender norms and power relations. These failures are intentionally obscured through the performative practice of corrupted reporting. We conclude by proposing social protection features that are expected to promote more equitable, inclusive and just pathways to sustainably reduce climate induced vulnerability of subsistence farmers.

Social protection is increasingly becoming a powerful tool for enhancing productivity and employment and is, therefore, important for Africa’s agricultural transformation. Thus, this study aims at examining how Africa’s agricultural sector can be transformed through social protection policies and programmes for employment. It applies the Feasible Generalised Least Squares (FGLS) econometric method on a panel of 38 African countries with the data sourced from the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) and World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period 2005–2017. The results from the study show that social protection has a positive impact on employment outcomes through various channels such as building human resource, equity in the use of public resources, social inclusion, among others. The study concludes by recommending that the governments of African countries should implement effective social protection programmes and policies in the agricultural sector in form of insurance, in-kind and cash support, among others to make farming attractive, thereby increasing employment and productivity.

Brazilian social protection programs have had consistent effects in reducing poverty and inequality among their respective target-groups: children, adolescents and pregnant and breastfeeding women. In 2011, the Brazil without Extreme Poverty program was launched as a strategy to eradicate extreme poverty by 2014. It makes the promotion of rights the core concept of the official political narrative. This study seeks to provide a systematic description of the Brazil without Extreme Poverty program and its initial results. A review of official documents and academic studies on the social protection programs was conducted. The Brazil without Extreme Poverty program represents an incremental approach to the social protection policies enacted by the previous administration. It advocates a multidimensional and focused approach, funded primarily by the federal government. The strategy subscribes to the international trend of associating social protection with employment and income generation policies.

In this era of austerity, while there are significant fiscal pressures on social protection programs particularly on cash benefits, there is increasing rhetoric concerning the ‘social investment turn.’ Yet, some scholars question whether social investment policies are actually expanding. The evidence is not sufficiently apparent, and others question whether social protection policies have actually crowded out social investment policies. So far, few systematic studies have examined this issue. This research aims to explore the effect of traditional social protection on social investment policies in 18 OECD countries from 1980 to 2010. To investigate the predictive and causal relationships between the two types of policies, we will use the Granger panel analysis. Then, we will adopt the Beck & Katz panel model to analyze the crowding-out effect that social protection policies have on social investment. We argue that social protection has not crowded out social investment policies in general but, rather, that the positive link between them is increasingly weaker in recent years. In the end, we discuss the theoretical and policy implications of our findings.

Social protection and agriculture: Introduction to the special issue

Seven NGOs, the Kenyan government, the European Union and the Danish and German governments are working together to implement a ’Safety Nets’ programme targeting Kenya’s millions of informal workers. With rising food insecurity and sexual and gender-based-violence, mounting job losses, poor access to water and sanitation, and a lack of formal safety nets, the Kenyan informal sector has suffered the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Safety Nets programme has revealed that cash transfers which support the most vulnerable people, and are implemented safely, transparently and accountably, have the potential to help vulnerable households stave off starvation, infection and eviction. They can also help reduce the vulnerability of survivors and those at risk of sexual and gender-based violence. The results of this programme demonstrate that nascent Kenyan ‘social protection’ programmes should be 1) immediately extended and expanded to the many vulnerable Kenyans currently not enrolled in any social protection programme; and 2) strengthened long-term to make them more effective, sustainable and accountable.

The article examines the historical prerequisites for the emergence of the concept of the principle of diminishing returns of production factors. The analysis of the manifestation of this principle in the context of all factors of production. As a result of the analysis of the characteristics of human capital, an approach is proposed according to which the principle of diminishing marginal return does not apply to investments in human capital at the macrolevel and in the long term. It is shown that human capital at the macro level and in the long term (in the context of long waves of economic cycles) shows a trend of increasing returns. And it is the increasing return on investment in human capital that prevents the manifestation of diminishing returns on other factors of production. The reasons that determine the increasing return of human capital, as opposed to the physical, are systematized, among which: it, during a certain period of the process of use, improves, grows in quality and accumulates; does not disappear without a trace, contributes to the growth of human capital of other individuals, investments in human capital provide positive externalities, the component of human capital is a resource of knowledge, is inexhaustible and shows an exponential growth trend, the process of investing in human capital is greatly influenced by national, historical, psychological and socio cultural factors, investment in human capital, as a rule, provide a high rate of return.

Agile methodologies have been discussed in professional practice and academic research for several years. Agile methods have gained notoriety over the last 2 decades as companies have embraced the digital revolution. Agile was popular with various companies before COVID-19, but the pandemic turbocharged its adoption. Companies that were able to show resiliency and adapt to COVID-19 displayed characteristics borrowed from the Agile framework. Although Agile methods are beneficial, they are costly and lengthy and require considerable organizational commitments such as process transformation, organizational structure and culture change, and continuous employee learning. There is dense literature on the maturity of Agile transformation (MAT), top management support (TMS), maturity of digital transformation (MDT), and investment in human capital (IHC) individually. Further, the findings from prior research identify how leadership, investment in resources, technology, human capital, and digital technologies are vital for successful transformations. This study used a linear regression model to assess the relationship between MAT and organizational performance. Using quantitative analysis, this study examined the effects of MAT on organizational performance. In addition, this study investigated the impact of TMS, MDT, and IHC on organizational performance.

ABSTRACTDespite a greater need for social protection among people with disabilities, there is limited evidence of their inclusion into social protection programmes in low- and middle-income countries. This paper presents the findings from a review of regional and global data sources for Asia-Pacific and Africa to identify social protection programmes that aim to include people with disabilities. It finds a substantial number of programmes in both regions, although there is considerable variation in the quantity and types of programmes within and between regions and countries, as well as between low- and middle-income countries. Further, the quality of data is not sufficient to assess the degree to which these programmes are genuinely inclusive of people with disabilities. As such, it highlights important limitations in the way data is currently being collected that require further attention in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the commitment to ‘Leave No-one Behind’