A mini-edition while on mission to the Middle-East…
When is social protection shock-responsive and when is it adaptive? The above figure and insightful piece by Cornelius et al visualize and explore the question.
Speaking of visualizing, the Social Assistance Explorer by Manchester University is now even more interactive – e.g., want to know the latest number of people covered by social assistance? 843 million…
From present coverage to future systems: the OECD released its volume on the future of social protection. Most of the first part was anticipated in a recent policy brief (linked back in May, see here), but the narrative was enriched with plenty of examples and nuance. For example, there is an interesting discussion on the 2018 Danish unemployment insurance reform aimed at aligning wage and self-employment benefits. The ensuing set of 6 individual country case studies is gold mine of details.
More on Europe: De Wispelaere et al offer an interesting reflection on the Finnish (non)UBI pilot, while a workshop in Geneva sets out some interesting resources from the ESMAP work on energy subsidy reforms.
Moving to Africa, what do we know about gender and distribution of nutrients within households in Ethiopia? A paper by Coates et al finds that differences were greatest against ‘vulnerable groups’ (women, children) for ‘invisible’ nutrients (iron) than calories/proteins.
From Africa to Asia: what happens when combining conditional cash transfers and graduation grants ($518) in the Philippines? Probability of owning a family firm increases by 22 percentage points, according to preliminary results from a JDR article by and Theoharides.
Back to global work: what do 113 studies tell us on labor market activation programs for youth? Kluve et at show that 1/3 of impacts are positive, but effect size small. Interestingly, success rate is higher in low and middle income countries than high-income setting. Key ingredients for successful design include incorporating multiple services, profiling, and individualized follow-up.