Improving research infrastructure on social assistance

自进入世纪以来，低收入和中等收入国家已实施或扩大了向贫困或赤贫家庭提供直接资金转移的方案，作为加强其脱贫能力的一种手段。这些方案的基本原理是，通过现金和实物转移稳定和增加家庭收入，将使方案参与者能够改善营养，确保对儿童教育和健康的投资，并有助于克服经济和社会排斥。除贫转移支付方案的扩展速度加快。据估计，发展中国家约有10亿人与接受转移的人居住在一起。正如预期的那样，在低收入国家，由于实施和财政方面的限制以及有限的精英政治支持，社会援助的传播速度较慢，更具试验性，发展中国家的扶贫转移支付方案在设计、有效性、规模和目标方面存在很大差异。在大多数国家，有几种干预措施同时进行，具有不同的优先事项和设计，而且往往针对不同的群体。在许多国家，社会公共援助方案与正规部门工人的社会保险方案和人道主义或紧急援助方案一起发挥作用。社会援助的重点是贫困群体，提供中期支助，并由政府提供资金。社会援助在发展中国家的普及表明，在知识方面存在巨大差距，例如在其有效性、覆盖面和可持续性方面。比较分析对于填补这些空白和改进国家、区域和全球政策至关重要。例如，如2015年后国际发展议程所建议的那样，要实现零赤贫目标，就需要建立有效的常设机构，确保经济增长的惠益惠及最贫穷者。社会援助对实现这一目标至关重要。这一研究项目的重点是在概念、指标和数据方面改善社会援助的研究基础设施。迫切需要这样做，以支持对新出现的社会援助机构进行比较分析。该项目将确定评估社会援助方案的指标，并将收集2000年至2015年所有发展中国家的有关资料。该数据库将在线提供给全球的研究人员和决策者。作为该项目的一部分，将对该数据库进行分析，以审查社会援助方案和机构的模式或结构。我们感兴趣的是确定社会援助方案或机构的理想类型和广泛特点，从而能够减少方案和干预措施的巨大多样性，使其具有核心特点。这些理想的类型是社会援助制度。进一步的分析将检验与具体社会援助制度有关的政治、人口、经济和社会因素的潜在组合。这一分析将使我们能够审查哪些条件有助于解释发展中国家社会援助的扩大;哪些因素影响不同国家和区域社会援助机构的具体配置;以及需要哪些条件才能使其有效和可持续。这项研究将有助于了解社会援助对减少贫穷和脆弱性以及对经济和社会发展的贡献。

Since the turn of the century low and middle income countries have introduced or expanded programmes providing direct transfers to families in poverty or extreme poverty as a means of strengthening their capacity to exit poverty. The rationale underpinning these programmes is that stabilising and enhancing family income through transfers in cash and in kind will enable programme participants to improve their nutrition, ensure investment in children's schooling and health, and help overcome economic and social exclusion. The expansion of antipoverty transfer programmes has accelerated. Estimates suggest that around 1 billion people in developing countries reside with someone in receipt of a transfer. As would be expected, the spread of social assistance has been slower and more tentative in low income countries due to implementation and finance constraints and limited elite political support.Antipoverty transfer programmes in developing countries show large variation in design, effectiveness, scale, and objectives. In most countries, there are several interventions running alongside one another with diverse priorities and designs, and often targeting different groups. In many countries social public assistance programmes work alongside social insurance programmes for formal sector workers and humanitarian or emergency assistance. Social assistance focuses on groups in poverty, provides medium term support, and is budget-financed. The spread of social assistance in developing countries has revealed significant gaps in the knowledge, for example as regards their effectiveness, reach, and sustainability. Comparative analysis is essential to fill in these gaps and improve national, regional and global policy. For example, achieving a zero target for extreme poverty, as has been suggested in the context of the post-2015 international development agenda, would require effective and permanent institutions ensuring the benefits from economic growth reach the poorest. Social assistance is essential to achieving this goal. This research project focuses on improving research infrastructure on social assistance, in terms of concepts, indicators and data. This is urgently needed to support comparative analysis of emerging social assistance institutions. The project will identify indicators to assess social assistance programmes and will collect information on these for 2000 to 2015 for all developing countries. The database will be made available online to researchers and policy makers globally. As part of the project, the database will be analysed to examine patterns or configurations in social assistance programmes and institutions. Our interest is in identifying ideal types, broad features of social assistance programmes or institutions which enable reducing the large diversity of programmes and interventions to their core characteristics. These ideal types are social assistance regimes. Further analysis will test for potential combinations of political, demographic, economic and social factors linked to specific social assistance regimes. This analysis will allow us to examine what conditions can help explain the expansion of social assistance in developing countries; what factors influence the specific configuration of social assistance institutions in different countries and regions; and what conditions are needed for their effectiveness and sustainability. This research will throw light on the contribution of social assistance to the reduction of poverty and vulnerability and to economic and social development.