Introduction to livelihoods and social protection
Many developing countries lack social welfare systems, placing large numbers of poor people at risk from economic and natural shocks and stresses. When crisis hits people may be forced to sell off livelihoods assets, such as land and livestock, and resort to low-risk low-yield food crops, leaving them even more vulnerable to shocks. Such measures also dramatically reduce the capacity of those who survive such events to return to productive activity once the crisis has passed.
Social protection is defined as measures that help individuals, households, and communities to better manage income and other risks that create and maintain vulnerability. This includes the provision and protection of assets, as well as livelihood promotion initiatives that can act as springboards out of poverty and into productive livelihoods. Livelihoods thinking has been influential in the evolution of such transformative social protection from the traditional safety-nets agenda of the late 1980s and early 1990s that focused primarily on food aid and welfare programmes.
Examples of social protection initiatives include:
- old age pensions
- employment guarantee schemes
- public work programmes
- child, disability and unemployment benefits
- cash and other asset transfers.
A differentiated livelihoods analysis is needed to ensure that women, men, the elderly, children, the marginalised all benefits from social protection policy.
Social protection programmes are said to:
- contribute to the transition out of emergency relief by addressing the structural dimensions of hunger and vulnerability
- play a transformative role in the livelihoods of poor people, creating assets, stimulating local markets and generating income and employment multipliers
- contribute to the poverty and hunger Millennium Development Goals by increasing household income, protecting assets, and reducing vulnerability to shocks.
This section recommends readings which draw on social protection and livelihoods thinking and a regularly updated list of relevant publications.
Recommended reading
- Policy paper on social protection
- ( A. Shepherd; R. Marcus; A. Barrientos / Department for International Development, UK , 2004)
- This paper, produced by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) for DFID, examines mechanisms for social protection in low income countries, clarifying the meaning of social protection and its role w...
- Gender and social protection
- ( C. Luttrell; C. Moser / Overseas Development Institute, London , 2004)
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This paper aims to inform policy-makers on methods for incorporating gender issues in the development of social protection policies, strategies and programmes.
Because women are more likely to be ex...
- From food crisis to fair trade: livelihoods analysis, protection and support in emergencies
- ( S. Jaspars / Emergency Nutrition Network , 2006)
- This article begins with an overview of livelihoods programming in the context of emergencies; an increasingly popular approach, going beyond a focus on food aid alone. In general there is a lack of w...
- Whose poverty matters?:vulnerability, social protection and PRSPs
- ( R. Marcus; J Wilkinson / Chronic Poverty Research Centre, UK , 2002)
- Looks at how PRSPs are tackling the issue of "social protection": public policy concerned with the livelihoods and welfare of particularly poor and vulnerable group. The report particularly focuses...
