Dear friends,

The message describing the idea of an international mechanism to support progress towards nationally-owned social protection schemes triggered a few comments, that I would like to address by making two remarks, respectively on the political moment and on the risk of top-down approaches. 
 
1. The proposal for a Global Fund for Social Protection is explicitly grounded on the International Labour Conference  Recommendation 202 Concerning National Floors of Social Protection, adopted with 453 votes in favour of adopting the Recommendation and one abstention. The recommendation refers to the need for international cooperation in this regard, stating in paragraph that "National social protection floors should be financed by national resources. Members whose economic and fiscal capacities are insufficient to implement the guarantees may seek international cooperation and support that complement their efforts".
 
It may be added that when they met in Los Cabos on 18-19 June 2012, the leaders of the G-20 released a declaration in which they offered support for the promotion and adoption of social protection systems. Specifically, they stated, “We recognize the importance of establishing nationally determined social protection floors. We will continue to foster inter-agency and international policy coherence, coordination, cooperation and knowledge sharing to assist low-income countries in capacity building for implementing nationally determined social protection floors. We ask international organizations to identify policy options with low-income countries on how to develop effective sustainable protection floors.
 
Since it was made in early October 2012, the GFSP proposal has been very well received by a range of partners. Notably, the proposal was presented to States during the 39th session of the Committee on World Food Security held in Rome from 15 to 20 October 2012, leading to the Committee to endorse specific recommendations regarding social protection which, inter alia, highlights =93the role of international cooperation in reinforcing national actions to implement sustainable social protection programmes and systems and underlines that social protection programmes for food security and nutrition should be guided by human rights norms and standards, including through the adoption of integrated and mutually-supportive social protection and food security and nutrition strategies and policies, based on human rights standards and principles, including non-discrimination and equality (including gender), meaningful participation, transparency and accountability(CFS 2012/39, para. 7). I have also been working closely with the Social Protection Inter-Agency Collaboration Board (SPIAC-B), co-chaired by the World Bank and the ILO, and which seeks to identify means to support progress towards social protection floors in developing countries.
 
There is a momentum, and there are solutions. What is needed now is for pressure to build on governments to take seriously proposals that can make a difference, and to test potential solutions in bilateral or regional settings before implementing them on a broader (and perhaps multilateral) scale.
 
2. With respect to Rob Vos’ wise and important comments, they certainly are a good reason to ensure that whatever incentive is established to move towards improving social protection floors are context-sensitive. I agree entirely with this being an important consideration, although it must also be recalled at the same time that all countries have a duty to guarantee the right to social security as understood in international human rights law. Interpreting Article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) defined the right to social security in its General Comment No. 19, as encompassing the right to access and maintain benefits, whether in cash or in kind, without discrimination in order to secure protection, inter alia, from (a) lack of work-related income caused by sickness, disability, maternity, employment injury, unemployment, old age, or death of a family member; (b) unaffordable access to health care; (c) insufficient family support, particularly for children and adult dependents. Further, the right to social security includes the right not to be subject to arbitrary and unreasonable restrictions of existing social security coverage, whether obtained publicly or privately, as well as the right to equal enjoyment of adequate protection from social risks and contingencies.

To be clear, the idea is certainly not to impose a one-size-fits-all or to force some blueprint for social protection on countries with different backgrounds and challenges; it is rather to provide an incentive to accelerate investments in social protection, by supporting these efforts at international level.
 
With my best wishes,
Olivier De Schutter

Prof. Olivier De Schutter
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm
http://www.srfood.org/
Postal address:
SSH/JURI/PJTD - College Thomas More
Place Montesquieu 2, bte L2.07.01
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
 
For official communications related to my mandate as UN Special Rapporteur:
Special Rapporteur on the right to food
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNOG-OHCHR, CH1211 Geneve 10, Suisse
E-mail: [email protected]

Dear like-minded colleagues,

As a participant in and observer of development debates for some time, I am both delighted to partake in the exchanges of this forum, in which I recognize many ideas and views I fully share, and very concerned about the growing disconnect between development cooperation increasingly caged in
processes and real action changing the lives of people who most need it.

The possibility for the world to see a basic social protection extended to all people, especially the large deprived majority, is very real. The options for getting closer to that goal are worthy of some consideration.

The UN spends some $20 billion in development aid annually, roughly a fifth of total ODA, and the World Bank (IDA) roughly twice that amount.

UN aid is more in the form of technical assistance as it should be, whilst the Bank works through loans.

Whether broadening social protection coverage is best served by a new Global Fund, akin to existing formulas, or through technical assistance, or some combination, is worthy of consideration.

As Rob, I am inclined to think a new Global Fund may not be the better option. However, I am not al all convinced that UN managed development, specifically in the form of UNDAFs, heavy on process and short on ideas and policy, is the answer. Hence I venture to propose three things to support
expansion of social protection coverage.

a) Social protection should be a priority for ODA. An increase on the percent share of ODA currently going to social protection (that number should be known!) should be a UN/DAC target, and there should be a campaign to move
that objective.
b) There should be a network of social protection specialists, duly certified and acknowledged, with hands on experience, recognized by an international authority that countries and UN can call upon to support national efforts.
c) The training of national experts into social protection specialists should be significantly stepped up.
d) An annual report on progress made in expansion of coverage, with a few sharp indicators, should be issued, with in depth review of selected experiences that demonstrate movement towards the goal.

These four proposals are within reach. They would make a significant and substantial contribution to steady progress in the expansion of coverage.

Philippe Egger
Director Bureau of Programming and Management
International Labour Office

Dear Friends,
 
I want to disagree strongly with Rob Vos. I have always argued that in the context of a globalised economy we need a globalised social policy. This GSP should, in my view contain three elements; the articulation of global social RIGHTS, the fashioning of some global social REGULATION, and an element of global REDISTRIBUTION. A global fund to support countries develop their own social protection floors could be one element of the Redistribution strand.
 
It has become fashionable in the wake of the bad experiences of structural adjustment to argue that countries should now raise their own revenues from mineral resources, the better off within the country or by other means to create their own social contracts between national social groups. I support this absolutely but there is no reason why this should exclude the additional element of a global social contract between richer countries and poorer or between global capital and the poor. Indeed the more we have runaway global inequality the more it is required.
 
Redistribution from a global fund to support poorer countries develop a SPF should be in the form of matching funds. Every dollar in revenue raised by a country by its own fiscal policy which is earmarked for spending on its own social protection floor could be rewarded with a dollar from the fund. The concept of matching funds is a long established mechanism for supporting development within poorer regions of  a country and poorer countries within a regional bloc. Such a carrot mechanism to steer global social priorities has nothing in common with a Northern imposed conditionality linked to Bank or IMF loans .
 
The long delayed and long awaited call by the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteurs for Extreme Poverty and for the right to Food should be welcomed as a step on the road to working out how mechanisms of global social governance can be constructed which go beyond mere exhortations to countries to realise social rights.  
 
Bob Deacon
Emeritus Professor of International Social Policy, University of Sheffield
ref
Deacon, B (2007), Global Social Policy and Governance, London Sage,
Deacon, B (2013). Making Global Social Policy: The Foundations of the Social Protection Floor, Bristol, Policy Press.
See Also the journal Global Social Policy.

Dear friends, 

The notion of establishing social protection floors in all countries is sound from a social and economic perspective. Even in the poorest rural areas, provision of social protection (through cash transfers or otherwise) have been shown to foster food security and rural development, aside from providing immediate income protection to beneficiaries. In that sense I fully agree with Olivier.

However, such positive spinoffs does not mean that a “Global Fund for Social Protection” would be a good idea. In fact, it may be a bad idea. First, it might just add to an already confounded and highly fragmented international development assistance architecture (assuming the Fund would mainly aim to channel resources from rich to poor countries to finance social protection programmes). I don’t think we would be well served with yet another vertical fund for earmarked use.  Second, and more importantly, social protection systems work best when tailored to country contexts. This is not a trivial matter. The needs for social protection differ greatly across countries and there are multiple mechanisms to provide it. In practice, most countries have an array of social protection mechanisms (ranging from food and energy price subsidies to social security transfers, and to cash transfers, direct food assistance, subsidized health care access, etc. etc.). These may not always have been construed in a coherent way, but typically have their contextual reasons. Many countries may need reforms to these mechanisms to provide more adequate social protection to all. However, it is not obvious that a Global Fund would be helpful in supporting this. Worse, it may just make such reforms subject to international donor conditionality. In short, social protection floors are best built bottom up (as floors should be), rather than top down.

Rob Vos
Coordinator Strategic Programme on Rural Poverty Reduction (SO3) and
Director Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division (ESW)
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
Viale delle Terme di Caracalle -- 00153 Rome, Italy
email:  [email protected]
Website: http://www.fao.org/economic/esw/esw-home/en

Dear Colleagues: 

Building on Jomo Kwame Sundaram’s essay on this list last week, in which he describes the importance of the role
of the UN in advocating for a major policy shift away from the Washington Consensus approach, I am sending this piece which I wrote recently for the Center for Economic and Social Rights: 

Integrating Fiscal and Finance Issues into a Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda
http://www.cesr.org/article.php?id=1422

Rick Rowden
Development Consultant

Yes, to Olivier's case e for the Global Fund for Social
protection. 
 
However, the case would even be stronger if it would make full ore better use of already existing political groundswells. It could designate  its potential support for low income countries towards introducing or completing their National Social Protection Floors.  

National  Social Protection Floors as defined by ILO Recommendation No. 202 of June 2012 give explicit contents to the Human Right Social Security and have been accepted as a cornerstone of national SP development strategies by unanimously by ILO members that included the 185 member states, i.e. most UN member states. We should all take this as a manifestation of international  political will. And - whether intended or not - as a modest
step in global governance to give effect to the Human Right to social security.
 
Best,
Michael Cichon
President International Council on Social Welfare
email: [email protected] 

Dear friends,

If protecting human rights could be translated into a single political action, the creation of comprehensive social protection schemes would be  it.

Health care, unemployment insurance, food aid, disability benefits: these are some of the services that characterise durable human development and distinguish today's most prosperous societies from those living one hundred, or even fifty, years ago. 

Yet many of the world's poorer states have not adopted anything like a comprehensive social safety net. Some 80% of the world's poorest people remain without any access to basic security against poverty and the risks associated with illness, old age, or unemployment. In low-income countries a small increase in food prices can leave the poorest no longer able to put food on the table. Worse, they cannot turn to the State for help. The injustice is particularly acute if considered that, for as little as 2 per cent of global GDP, basic social protection could be provided to all of the world's
poor.

So why are we not achieving faster progress in the establishment of social protection schemes in developing countries? Some countries have failed to invest in social protection because the development models supported by major international institutions have pushed States to lower government spending and reduce the size of the State. Elsewhere it is limited infrastructure and a low ability of local populations to pay into a contributory system that holds States back.

But for others, particularly least developed countries, the main disincentive is the risk of economic or environmental shocks. In small developing countries a large portion of the population is often susceptible to the same risks of natural disasters, epidemic diseases or extreme food price increases, leading to simultaneous surges in demand for social protection and decreases in State export and taxation revenues. States have a legitimate concern that they will not be able to pay out – or will be bankrupted in the process of doing so.

But social protection is too crucial a building block of development to be allowed to fall asunder on this uncertainty, and the multiplier effects of a decent social safety net – for human development and sustained economic growth – are too great to miss out on.

Global solidarity is needed to break the deadlock. Wealthier nations must assist States for whom the costs are too big to absorb alone. The Global Fund for Social Protection that I have proposed, alongside Magdalena Sepúlveda, UN Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, would allow poorer States to draw on international funding to meet the basic costs of putting social protection in place, while the Fund could also be called upon to underwrite these schemes against the risks of excess demand triggered by major shocks.

States can no longer claim to believe in human rights protection while failing to invest in social protection, for the two are intimately linked. There are many ways and means of funding a decent social safety net – now we need the
political will.

Olivier De Schutter 
Prof. Olivier De  Schutter
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm
http://www.srfood.org/

For official communications related to my mandate as UN Special Rapporteur:
Special Rapporteur on the right to food 
Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights 
UNOG-OHCHR,
CH1211 Genève 10, Suisse  
E-mail: [email protected]

Dear friends, 

Following up on the message by Anis Chowdhury from Bangkok - Capitalism prescribes the same policy mistakes
over and over again - austerity, punishment for debtors (unless they are financial institutions), labor cost cutting - that exacerbate its inevitable crises. When will we attack the structural roots of crisis?

Sharing my views from the United States, where the situation is worsening and will impact global growth:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14917-austerity-another-policy-mistake-again
 
Best regards
Richard Wolff
Professor of Economics Emeritus, 
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Dear Friends
This is to share with you critical work on "macroeconomic confidence" 
 
Best
Anisuzzaman Chowdhury
Professor of Economics
University of Western Sydney, Australia

Chasing the confidence fairy

When the financial crisis first hit, world leaders, including those in the largest economies in the G-20, acted decisively with large fiscal stimulus packages, totalling about $2.6 trillion during 2008-2010. 
 
But with the emergence of supposed ‘green shoots’ of recovery from mid-2009, financial markets and media shifted attention to the ballooning public debt, especially in the Eurozone, where countries borrow in Euros, rather than in national currencies. Governments have been successfully pressured to take drastic measures to cut government debt and deficits. 

Such drastic actions, it is claimed, would engender investor confidence and hence stimulate recovery. However, market confidence has not been restored. As the austerity measures adversely affect growth, jobs, incomes, and tax revenue, they reduce rather than raise market confidence. This is evident from recent downgrading of UK’s credit rating by Moody’s, saying that  sluggish economic growth would hinder the government's ability to control rising debt levels and deal with any new financial shocks.

Yet, instead of abandoning or at least re-evaluating the austerity-based policies, the cuts are now said by some to have been insufficiently deep. Thus, more cuts are being proposed, further choking their ability to grow. 

As a result, more than four years into the Great Recession, most industrialized countries continue to face growing unemployment and public debt. Average unemployment in industrialized countries rose from around 5% in 2007 to 8% in 2012. The Eurozone is faring worse, with unemployment over 11%, and still rising in some countries. The unemployment rate in Spain rose to 26% in 2012, with youth unemployment surging to 55%. In Greece, it stood at 26.8%, the highest in the European Union with youth unemployment edging towards 60%. 

At the same time, the average public debt in industrialized economies increased from 70% of GDP in 2007 to about 110% in 2012 – its highest level in half a century. Government debt in the 17-nation euro zone rose to around 90% in the 3rd quarter of 2012 and is expected to peak at 94.5% in 2013, according to European Commission forecasts.

Thus, fiscal austerity – seeking to cut budgetary deficits, curb public debt and thus “regain the confidence of the financial markets” – has been self defeating, as it reduces economic growth as well as fiscal revenue and capacity. 

The work of Alesina and his associates that influenced the European leaders of investors’ confidence and the need for big bang fiscal consolidation has been found fraught with methodological shortcomings and factual errors. Nonetheless, in his presentation at the European Cen! tral Bank, Alesina asserted very strongly that “Many even sharp reductions of budget deficits have been accompanied and immediately followed by sustained growth rather than recessions even in the very short run”.However, his findings were more modest: “...in several episodes spending cuts adopted to reduce deficits have been associated with economic expansions rather than recessions”. In his presentation, ‘several’ became ‘many’ and ‘associated’ became ‘immediately followed by’! Alesina’s study with Ardagna of 107 episodes of fiscal consolidation in all OECD countries during 1970-2007 found only 27 cases – about a quarter – of fiscal consolidation with growth.[1]

 A recent IMF study notes that confidence effects have never been strong enough during downturn to make the consolidations expansionary at least in the short run.[2] It also finds that “Frontloaded consolidations tend to be more cont! ractionary and, hence, delay the reduction in the debt-to-GDP ratio relative to smoother consolidations.” Another IMF study shows that when fiscal consolidation leads to growth contractions they reduce rather than raise market confidence.[3] 
 
Research at the IMF, using data from the past 30 years, indicates that very little long-term gains can be expected from fiscal consolidation which raises both short-term and long-term unemployment. It finds much greater impact of fiscal consolidation on long-term unemployment, and wage-earners are hurt disproportionately more than profit- and rent- earners. Thus, it concludes, “slamming on the brakes [fiscal consolidation] too quickly will hurt the recovery and worsen job prospects. Hence the potential longer-run benefits of fiscal consolidation must be balanced against the short- and medium-run adverse impacts on growth and jobs”. [4] 
 
An earlier IMF study of 74 cases of fiscal consolidation in 20 industrialized countries during 1970-1995 found only 14 cases – less than a fifth – which were ‘successful’ in reducing (by about three percentage points over a period of three years) the debt-to-GDP ratio as the growth rate increased. [5] These successes were also due to factors such as the global business cycle, monetary policy, exchange rate policy, and structural reforms. It also found that “strong global economic growth helps to achieve a successful consolidation, and weak global growth reduces the chances that consolidation will cut the debt-to-GDP ratio”.[6]

 The IMF has finally admitted that there was a serious miscalculation of multipliers with respect to the depth of resulting negative impact on growth during the design phase of austerity policies.[7] Is this admission enough for accountability when policy advice based on such erroneous research has brought miseries to millions of people and policy advisors comfortably hold on to their own jobs? 

One wonders why the IMF with around 1,000 professional economists, many with Ph.Ds from top schools, had to use “informal evidence” to suggest a low multiplier. It is also not clear why the IMF advised fiscal consolidation so early in the
recovery when its past study was not so sanguine about the outcome. More puzzling is the little influence IMF research seems to have on its operations and policy advice and conditionalities. 

So, it is not surprising that policymakers are still refusing to
reconsider their approach to dealing with unemployment and debt. Instead, they are still seeing signs of progress and ready to slam more cuts.

They are also hoping that growth will come from a major expansion of export demand, but obviously, global economic recovery cannot be based on all countries finding external markets for their output. Hence, the response to growing unemployment and public debt has to primarily involve reinvigorating domestic demand.

This would entail both immediate policy actions to expand domestic demand as well as medium-term policies to address structural issues, and longer-term challenges such as climate change. This requires national consensus among stakeholders, particularly government, business  and workers.

The immediate task is to restore consumer and business confidence which depends on sales and profits prospects. This would require boosting spending. This can be quickly achieved by reversing social protection and public employment cuts. 
 
Governments should expand public services including active labour market programs, subsidized childcare, universal healthcare and education. Such public provisioning enhances ‘social wages’, taking pressure off wage demands as businesses strive to recover. These measures help mitigate inequalities and enhance the welfare of all, thus ensuring social and political stability.

Moreover, well designed unemployment benefits and active labour market programs not only provide much-needed income support, but also prevent skill erosion by keeping workers employed and providing training. 
 
Almost eight decades ago, President Franklin Roosevelt introduced the New Deal for a strong and sustained economic recovery. Not only did it pull the United States out of the Great Depression, but it also addressed unsustainable agricultural practices that had caused widespread environmental, economic and social distress, and helped usher in a new era of economic growth and prosperity, especially in some poorer regions.

The current crisis also needs a New Deal type response, but after decades of globalization and environmental deterioration, it must also involve international cooperation and coordination as well as a collective global commitment to sustainable development.The current crises are global
in nature and responses are needed in all countries.

The GGND will inevitably increase public debt in the near term; but this should not pose a longer-term problem as it will engender sustained economic growth and employment recovery, as the New Deal did almost eight decades ago.

Many countries had huge public debts when WW II ended. Despite similar calls then for drastic expenditure cuts, governments spent a great deal more on economic
reconstruction and social protection measures As a result, economies grew all over the world, and debt burdens diminished quickly with rapid economic growth and fast growing tax revenues. These experiences show that deficits and surpluses should be adjusted counter-cyclically over
the course of business cycles.  

There is, of cou! rse, one big difference between then and now. The financial sector is much more powerful now, with governments often held hostage by financial markets and the whims of rating agencies. This continues, despite rating agencies abysmal performance before the crisis, with even the US Congress seriously debating whether they should be
prosecuted.

To make matters worse, there is still no orderly and fair mechanism for sovereign debt work-outs. The protracted
difficulties in resolving the Greek crisis underscore the urgent need for a fair and orderly sovereign debt work-out mechanism for all countries.

Harsh fiscal measures, without offsetting efforts to foster growth and job creation, typically fail to induce growth, create jobs, raise incomes and restore investor confidence. Instead, they exacerbate unemployment and social unrest, and are politically unsustainable.

A better way out is by deepening social dialogue among investors/employers, employees and governments. Only genuine social dialogues can reconcile competing demands on meagre resources as all parties can clearly see and address the costs and benefits as well as trade-offs among various difficult policy options. 
 
[1] Alesina, Alberto, and Silvia Ardagna (2009). ‘Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes vs Spending’. NBER Working Paper 15438, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA; Alesina, Alberto (2010). ‘Fiscal adjustments: lessons from history’. Economics Department, Harvard University, prepared for the Ecofin meeting in Madrid, April 15.
[2] Batini, Nicoletta, Giovanni Callegari and Giovanni Melina (2012). ‘Successful Austerity in the United States, Europe and Japan’. IMF Working Paper, WP/12/190, p. 7.
[3] See, Cottarelli, Carlo and Laura Jaramillo (2012) “Walking Hand in Hand: Fiscal Policy and Growth in Advanced Economies”, IMF working paper, WP/12/137.
[4] Ball, Laurence, Daniel Leigh, and Prakash Loungani (2011). ‘Painful medicine’. Finance & Development, September, p. 20.
[5] Dermott, C. John, and Robert F. Wescott (1996). ‘Fiscal Reforms That Work’. Economic Issues, 4, November.
[6] Dermott and Wescott, op. cit, p.10.
[7] IMF (2012), World Economic Outlook 2012, October

Dear friends, 
 
Global leaders have touted the apparent success of achieving in 2010 –well ahead of the 2015 target – the Millennium Development Goal of halving the share of people who were living below the poverty line in 1990. But, amid
enduring poverty, rising inequality, and lackluster growth in many developing countries, the success of past anti-poverty policies and programs appears dubious.

In fact, outside of East Asia, progress has been modest, with the situation worsening in some countries and regions. This mixed record calls into question the efficacy of conventional poverty-reduction policies, often identified with the Washington Consensus, which transformed the discourse on poverty in the 1980’s. Washington Consensus reforms – including macroeconomic stabilization (defined as low-single-digit inflation) and market liberalization – were supposed to reduce poverty by accelerating economic growth.

But little attention was paid to poverty’s structural causes, such as inequality of assets and opportunities, or the unequal distributional consequences of growth. And, because unskilled workers tend to lose their jobs first in economic downturns, while employment generally lags behind output recovery, reduced public investment in health, education, and other social programs ultimately increased the vulnerability of the poor.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the fallout from the global economic crisis that erupted in 2008 – the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930’s – has prompted experts, policymakers, and the international financial institutions to rethink poverty. Many are rejecting once-dominant perspectives on poverty and deprivation, warning that they lead to ineffective policy prescriptions.

For example, the United Nations’ Report on the World Social Situation: Rethinking Poverty,and its companion book Poor Poverty: The Impoverishment of Analysis, Measurement, and Policies, have sought to advance the debate on poverty by examining the conventional policy framework and assessing popular poverty-reduction programs. They affirm the need for a shift away from the fundamentalist free-market thinking that has dominated poverty-reduction strategies in recent decades toward context-sensitive measures to promote sustainable development and equality.

Indeed, these reports challenge the prevailing approach, which has left more than one billion people living below the poverty line (defined as the purchasing-power-parity equivalent of $1.25 per day in 2005), and has failed to
prevent economic growth from stalling in most countries. Meanwhile, inequality has increased worldwide – even in countries that have experienced rapid economic expansion, notably China and India. While growth is usually needed for poverty reduction, it does not necessarily translate into job creation, as many countries’ recent record of jobless or job-poor growth demonstrates.

The UN encourages governments to assume a more proactive development role, which would entail an integrated policymaking approach aimed at promoting
structural change while reducing inequality, vulnerability, and economic insecurity. Growth must become more stable, with a consistently counter-cyclical macroeconomic policy stance, prudent capital-account management, and greater
resilience to external shocks.

Generally, economies that have succeeded in terms of both economic growth and poverty reduction over the last three decades have done so by adopting pragmatic, heterodox policies. But aid conditionality and treaty commitments have significantly constrained policymaking in most developing
countries, especially the poorest. In particular, slow growth and revenue losses, owing to economic liberalization programs, have reduced the scope for fiscal policy, with serious consequences for poverty and destitution. This trend
must be reversed.

Moreover, while the programs that most donors like – such as micro-credit, formalization of land titles, and governance reforms – have sometimes helped to ameliorate the conditions facing the poor, they have not reduced poverty significantly. Leaders must consider, design, and implement
pragmatic and innovative alternatives, rather than continue to rely on ineffective policies and programs.

In recent decades, social policies have increasingly involved some form of means testing of eligible beneficiaries, ostensibly to enhance cost effectiveness. But, in general, universal social policies have been much more effective and politically sustainable, while policies targeting the poor, or the “poorest of the poor,” have often been costly and neglectful of many of those in need.

The right to social security enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsrequires universal social protection to ensure the well-being of all, including people living in poverty and those at risk of poverty. Social policy,
provisioning, and protection must therefore be integral to development and poverty-reduction strategies. In most countries, a basic social-protection floor – which can help countries to mitigate the negative effects of shocks and prevent people from falling deeper into poverty – is affordable.

In order to address global poverty effectively, world leaders must pursue poverty-reduction policies that support inclusive, sustainable economic growth and development – in turn increasing the fiscal resources that are available for social spending. Only when all citizens benefit from economic development can leaders devoted to poverty reduction claim genuine success.

Best,
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Assistant Director General,
Economic and Social Development Department
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
 
Read at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rethinking-anti-poverty-programs-and-policies-by-jomo-kwame-sundaram#Dr5i7klUSJmLKKk3.99

Dear colleagues,
Many thanks for circulating all these excellent materials.

I take that opportunity to share with you the latest data viz
created by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics on gender and education which was launched on the occasion of Women’s Day.

This is an interactive data game that lets you explore the progress and pitfalls of girls’ and women’s education around the world.
http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Pages/mind-the-gap.aspx

Taking full advantage of education and literacy data collected by the UIS, the tool gives users an overview of the situation in their country together with a broader perspective on the situation of people of their age,
especially girls and women, in countries all over the world.

We hope you like it, happy women’s day to all.
Kind regards

Patrick Montjourides
Programme Specialist
Unesco Institute for Statistics Education Indicators and Data Analysis [email protected] 
 

We thought readers might also be interested
in the recent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap. Act Now  (http://www.oecd.org/gender/closingthegap.htm).

The report provides a rich set of data, analysis and actionable policy messages on how to close gender gaps under four broad headings: 1) social norms and public policies; 2) education; 3) employment and 4) entrepreneurship. Specific analysis for emerging economies is presented across the report. The key policy messages can be summarized as follows:

- Greater gender equality in educational attainment has a strong positive effect on economic growth;
- Stereotyping needs to be addressed in educational choices at school from a young age. For example, adapt teaching strategies and material to increase engagement of boys in reading and of girls in maths and science; encourage more girls to follow science, engineering and maths courses in higher education and seek employment in these fields;
- Good and affordable childcare is a key factor for better gender equality in employment. But change also has to happen at home as the bulk of housework and caring is left to women in many countries. Policy can support such change, for example, through parental leave policies that explicitly include fathers.
- Support policies for women-owned enterprises need to target all existing firms, not just start-ups and small enterprises. Equal access to finance for male and female
entrepreneurs needs to be assured.

TheOECD Gender Data Portal (www.oecd.org/gender)
enables easy access to data and interactive visualizations for more than 40 indicators on gender equality in education, employment and entrepreneurship, for both OECD and selected emerging economies. 

For International Women’s Day, the OECD has created an interactive data tool 
 (http://www.oecd.org/gender/data/OECD-Gender-Data-Portal-Timeline-of-life-outcomes.xls) that highlights how women’s lives differ from those of men in OECD countries.

Clicking on the link automatically opens an Excel file with a drop down menu to choose a country. 
 
Kind regards,
Angelica Salvi Del Pero
OECD Gender Initiative
Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs
Social Policy Division
2, rue André Pascal - 75775 Paris Cedex 16
Tel: +33 1 45 24 91
53  || [email protected] 

Dear all,

I have not yet read Jayati's report nor ADB/ILO but
will do so soon. My apologies for that. Just a few additional points.

1) It is important to analyse the new working conditions or rather the new subcontracting arrangements. For example, employers are using recruitment agencies which hire workers. Their terms (contracts if any) have to be
analysed. Workers are made very vulnerable without organisational support and when they complain, for example, over heavy work load and too tight schedules,  they are fired.This is the case, for example, with cleaning women in institutions such as hotels.

2) Another worrisome trend is  "forced" or should I say bogus entrepreneurship. Contracts of workers are ended and they need to become "micro-entrepreneurs" who have to organise their own safety nets with often
meagre imcome.

3) For decades, there has been a debate over whether informal work is good or bad. Such debate must reflect
realities of workers. Most rural workers are underemployed and agriculture being mostly seasonal, their survival
strategy has been to get their livelihood from various sources. Therefore, broadbased livelihood must be
the focus of the policies and strategies.

4) We also have to analyse global chains from field to supermarkets to see how they weaken the role of rural workers as well as informal vendors without providing any alternatives. Informal sector can thus also become pawn for ideological goals of neoliberal markets.

5) Finally, world has moved into post-industrial financial economy and the stockmarkets respond positively when workers are fired, not when they are hired. Also, the investments increasingly - according to BIS - chase their own tails. Moneys go to finance financial instruments or to tax havens.  

Best regards
Anita Kelles-Viitanen
Chair of ATTAC Finland
Former Manager of Social Development ADB

Thanks, Jayati. 
 
Readers interested in the report you have shared may also be interested in this joint publication of the Asian Development Bank and ILO: Women and Labour Markets in Asia: Rebalancing for Gender Equality.

Published in 2011, the report says that although Asia is helping to lead the global economy, recovery of the labor market from the recent global economic and financial crisis has not kept pace. In some developing countries, particularly in East Asia, job growth is back, but the quality of jobs being created is a major concern. In particular, 45 per cent of the vast productive potential of Asian women remains untapped, compared to just 19 per cent for Asian men. 

The report further points out that poor quality jobs are a greater labor market  challenge for women than unemployment. A large proportion of women in Asia toils
in low-productivity, vulnerable and low-paid informal work. In addition, female youth unemployment is high and women remain largely perceived as a buffer workforce or secondary earners next to men.

Suggested policies include support for women entrepreneurs; assisting women working in agriculture to boost productivity; reducing Asia’s over-reliance on the
informal sector; promoting equal access to quality education and training; gender-responsive social protection; ensuring equality in representation and decision-making; and following a rights-based approach. 

The report can be downloaded here: http://www2.adb.org/documents/reports/women-labor-markets/women-labor-markets.pdf

Regards, 
Bart W. Édes 
Director, Poverty Reduction, Gender
and Social Development Division
Asian Development Bank, Metro Manila, Philippines 

Dear friends, 

Today is women’s day,so I thought to share with you the report “Economic crises and  women’s work: Exploring progressive strategies in a rapidly changing global environment” prepared for UNWOMEN, where we examined
issues of women’s employment and decent work in the context of the ongoing global financial and economic crisis. Recognizing the significant role of informal work, it considers how informal work affects the self-employed,
those employed by micro-enterprises, unpaid workers in family businesses and those who provide unpaid care activities. It focuses on the implications of the current crisis
for women workers and how labour markets have responded, and it analyses crisis-response strategies that endeavour to ensure the stability and/or expansion of
women’s employment and to improve its conditions. This examination leads to policy recommendations relevant to different contexts. 

I hope you find the report useful:
http://www.unwomen.org/publications/economic-crises-and-womens-work-exploring-progressive-strategies-in-a-rapidly-changing-global-environment/

Happy women’s day to all
Best regards,
Jayati Ghosh 
Executive Director International Economics
Development Associates (IDEAs)