targeted and universal social protection

TARGETED AND

UNIVERSAL SOCIAL

PROTECTION: CHANCE

FOR A MIDDLE

COURSE?

ARCHITECTUREOFAID(809AF)

�CANDIDATENUMBER:47274APRIL 19, 2010.

TARGETED AND UNIVERSAL SOCIAL PROTECTION: CHANCE FOR A MIDDLE COURSE?

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INTRODUCTION

The distribution of economic outputs of any nation has always been a concern to

governments whether on a minimal or extensive scale. The industrial revolution marks the

inception of the presently held idea of a middle‐class when non‐royalty connected

individuals began to have access to wealth accumulation on a greater scale than ever

before. The increased wealth of nations through the industrial process no doubt brought

about the decline of poverty levels and increased health standards from the European

territories to the New World. Accompanying this success was the realisation of capitalism’s

potential to create a new classification of poverty, one that is established and perpetuated

through a tight control of capital and the production process by a minority. Indeed, the

threat of such power to the underlining fabric of society building led to various postulations

that only institutions working on behalf of the general population should be vested with

such authority and control. This was an opposite extreme but rooted in the abuses of the

production process by the new capitalist class. It was not until the mid‐twentieth century,

exactly after the stock market crash and Second World War that states embraced the idea

of protecting against the possible excesses of capital‐controlled production process.

The high rate of growth required for the sustainability of the welfare state was not forth

coming in many of these new states and by the mid‐1980s when the debt crisis hit, many

had to abandon the that model as pre‐condition for economic help. Social risks were

altogether abandoned with the introduction of economic reforms as a condition for

recovery. Subequently, social policy debate in realtion to developing countries focused on

one thing: economic risk and cost. The failures of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP)

highlighted the vulnerability of many individuals in these states to economic liberalization


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prompting attention towards addressing poverty related economic risks. The focus on

poverty alleviation brought the ascendancy of programs which exclusively target the poor.

The proliferation of this approach across many developing countries has pitched existing

universal programs against the new push to give special attention to the most vulnerable.

Some universal programs have been subsequently modified to exclude rich beneficiaries as

means of bridging socio‐economic inequalities. However, targeting has not proven to be a

‘magic bullet’ for poverty alleviation and has raised more questions about addressing the

phenomenon than the answers it claims to provide. This essay is situated within an

argument that social programs must combine the need to aggressively reduce socio‐

economic inequalities through targeting with the morality of leaving no individual

uncovered whether rich or poor. Replacing universal programs with targeting weakens the

ability of governments to adequately provide strong measures to ensure that all citizens are

treated equally in the delivery of social services. At the same time, universalism without

direct intervention in addressing existing inequalities will only mean that the poor and

vulnerable only remain slightly above poverty levels rather than taken out of poverty

completely.

The arguments begin by focusing on the ascendancy of targeting programs in the next

section. The literature, in which the debates between universalism and targeting are

situated, is presented before addressing the limitations of choosing one over the other.

These limitations are presented in the third section through the analyses of one of the

biggest targeting programs in the world. The Bolsa Familia Program (or BFP) is the Brazilian

cash and asset transfer scheme targeting the very poor and ensuring use of social services

through a set of conditionalities. The fourth section presents some examples of the need to


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conceptualize, design and implement social protection programs with a vision of a using

targeting as a means towards achieving universal coverage rather than an end in itself.

Lastly, attention is turned towards concluding remarks that re‐iterate the dangers of

centralizing social protection debate on whether the poor deserve a special attention or

should be provided for as part of a larger population. What matters ultimately is that

poverty alleviation must utilize social protection measures across economic, political,

cultural, racial and indeed social causes and must be implemented as a socio‐economic right

and not a privilege.

POVERTY ALLEVIATION AS AN OBJECTIVE OF SOCIAL PROTECTION

Social Protection discourse is steeped in notions of universality and targeting with respect to

which individuals to be covered and for how long. The origins of the debate can be traced

primarily to the role of governments in providing social services either through taxes and

redistributive measures (in developed countries) or through channelling of various forms of

development assistance (Gentilini, 2009; Timmer, 2007). Further contributing to this debate

is the discussion on the best possible use of development assistance towards the alleviation

of poverty (Barrett & Swallow, 2006; Easterly, 2006; Sachs, 2006; Sachs, 2009). Poverty

alleviation has thus taken the centre stage as the default objective of social protection. The

centrality of poverty alleviation stems from the increased attention the phenomenon has

received in the last two decades as one of the major impediments to development. Its

multi‐dimensional nature extends beyond economic conditions to underlining structural

contributions to the vulnerability of more than 1 billion people around the globe to both

man‐made and natural disasters (Zupi, 2007; Qizilbash, 2004). There is however, much

debate about the best possible way to address poverty in its multifaceted nature through


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social programs. Suggestions have included the need to focus on the economic and labour

market causes of poverty (Holzmann & Grosh, 2008; ILO , 2004), health risks associated

poverty (GTZ, 2007) and natural disaster induced poverty (Davies et. al., 2008; Vakis, 2006).

Others have advocated for focusing on the relationship between the unreliability of

agricultural practices ‐ i.e. seasonality ‐ (Longley et. al., 2006; Farrington et. al., 2007) and

the importance of addressing poverty related disempowerment and rights denial (Devereux

& Sabates‐Wheeler, 2004). Common to all these various ideas on addressing poverty has

been the debate on the level of coverage for the poor under each proposition. Some of

these arguments are steeped in the need to target available resources to the most affected

by these poverty‐inducing factors while others have advocated for total coverage of all

citizens towards addressing the vulnerabilities of the poor and ensuring that the rich are

also guarded against falling into poverty (for example, in the event of natural disasters).

Informing this direction of the debate is the need to balance resources with capacities of

developing countries to deliver on ensuring adequate social support for their citizens

whether rich or poor. Essentially, how can these countries ensure that they can meet the

short‐term needs of the poor and yet have enough resources to plan for long‐term

investments in qualitative social services (Devereux, 2003)? Universalism has been the basis

for the welfare state model that permeated almost every corner of the globe between the

1950s and the late 1970s. It promotes equal distribution of resources by ensuring that the

rich helps to subsidise the cost of providing social services/programs for the poor.

Ultimately a reduction in inequality should result in increased national productivity because

the risks associated with labour production are mitigated against by the assurance that

labourers would be looked after in the event of undesired loss of wages (Lautier, 2006).


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Universalists maintain that this trade‐off need not occur because access to social services

and social protection programs should be a matter of right for every individual and not a

privilege from their governments. Their argument is rooted in the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights which states that “Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social

security” and that “…the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,

widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond [an individual’s]

control” must be protected by the state (UN, G.A. res. 217A (III), 1948, Art. 22 & 25). These

clauses form the basis of the claim that the existence of poverty is inherently a violation of

fundamental human rights and its eradication must be pursued with such vigour. This can be

ensured through the adoption of social minimum standards that ensure that individuals’

livelihoods do not deteriorate beyond a certain set standard (Thomson, 2007).

This process of entitling individuals to social programs has however been on the decline

since the neo‐liberal assault on the role of the state due to fiscal constraints and change in

conditions for development aid and attention is more pronounced towards targeted

approaches (Mkandawire, 2005). Some of the reasons for this decline are not limited to

over bloated budgets especially in developing countries. Some universal programs

entrenched levels of inequality through discrimination both within individual and

community social service users (Lisenda, 2004; Bategeka et. al., 2004). Also, many universal

programs failed to adequately address issues of poverty and inequality in a comprehensive

manner. Programs were established within different ministries, many of which lacked inter‐

ministerial cooperation to address areas where services overlap and complement each

other. Therefore, alleviating poverty cannot be reduced simply to universal access to social

programs but must include dealing with areas where poverty and vulnerability factors are


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inter‐related. Opposed to the idea of universalism, a notion that sounds more ideal than

practicable, targeted social programs advocate that poverty and inequality may only be

removed if limited resources can be directed towards individuals most affected and thus

most vulnerable to poverty related shocks.

The stock of targeted programs rose as many developing countries were forced to scale

back their social spending as a condition for development assistance under the SAP

arrangements of the 1980s and 1990s. The idea is rooted in the believe that governments

can focus their limited resources on the most needy by subsidising private sector managed

social services like healthcare and education (Besley & Kanbur, 1990; van de Walle, 1998;

Ravallion, 2009). Delivering poverty reduction to the poor can also be done with more

precision and accuracy by pin‐pointing beneficiaries through means‐testing (Akhter & Bouis,

2002; Gelbach & Pritchett, 2002), self‐targeting (Kevane & Conning, 2002) and geographic

targeting (Baker & Grosh, 1994; Elbers et. al. , 2008). Targeting programs have thus become

increasingly popular from Latin America to Sub‐Saharan Africa and South Asia and form the

basis for many poverty reduction schemes like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) and direct development assistance (Maxwell,

2003). However, these programs have been criticised because of the varying results from

different types of targeting and the possibility that the underlying cost‐saving assumptions

may not hold true as most of these programs work best in richer countries (Coady, Grosh, &

Hoddinott, 2004). The most popular targeting programs engage in one form of asset

transfer or the other, be it cash, livestock, agricultural input or any form of assets that can

guarantee a form of income generation. The biggest of the asset transfer programs are

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in Bangladesh and the Bolsa Familia


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program in Brazil. As the Bolsa Familia or BFP (which is further analysed below) indicates,

targeting has the potential of zeroing in on the poor to provide social protection (or

services) on both a large scale and a comprehensive manner. It also subsequently is not free

of the limitations of targeting and its role in enhancing neo‐liberal ideas into social service

provision.

CONDITIONAL TRANSFERS: THE BOLSA FAMILIA IN DEPTH AND SCOPE

The most popular targeting social protection programs have been some form of transfers or

the other to selected vulnerable groups. Brazil’s history with targeted social protection

programs dates back to the early 1990s when SAP debilitated the country’s capacity for

social services provision (Hall & Midgley, 2004). The austere measures required that the

government cut back on such spending which further damaged its capacity to fully address

the new socio‐economic vulnerabilities created by an overreach of economic liberalization.

Facing financial crises, budget cuts and increasing incidence of poverty levels both before

and more so after the introduction of the SAP agreements (Conway, de Haan, & Norton,

2000), universal social programs were out of the question. The government’s response was

to adopt the thinking along the line of its benefactors (the Washington institutions). A shift

to targeted, measured and more calculated social programs was affordable under the

budget cut proposals but more so, would allow for “means‐tested approach for addressing

mass poverty” (Hall, 2006, p. 2). The poor in Brazil thus became test subjects, in a “natural

laboratory” (Lindert et. al. 2007, p. 7), for the Washington Consensus' poverty reduction

strategy through conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs.


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BFP was launched in October 2003 as a consolidation of pre‐existing CCT programs to take

advantage of their complementarity. Specifically, it was meant to improve targeting

mechanisms, reduce overlapping inefficiencies and most importantly, take advantage of the

complementarity that exists among those CCTs and the social services they utilize (Lindert

et. al., 2007). The Bolsa Familia is a conditional cash transfer program that requires

beneficiaries to uphold certain responsibilities to fully qualify for cash receipts with the

hope of addressing both immediate and intergenerational poverty‐related vulnerabilities.

Included in the new mega but more comprehensive program were the Bolsa Escola (or

conditional grant based on school attendance), the Bolsa Alimentacao (food subsidy

conditioned upon health services use like maternity care), the Programa de Erradicao do

TrabalhoInfantil (to eliminate use of child labour), the Cartao Alimentaqcao (gas subsidy)

(MDS, 2006). BFP included changes to the administration of these programs beginning with

the merging of the Ministry of Food Security and Fight Against Hunger and the Ministry of

Social Welfare to create a new Ministry of Social Development (MDS) which now housed the

administrative headquarters of the scheme. Additionally, the scheme changed its focus from

individual beneficiaries to family group and family earning as a base indicator for selecting

beneficiaries.

Qualification as a beneficiary of BFP is premised on being identified as either being ‘poor’ or

‘extremely poor’. The extremely poor (who are automatically included in the program) are

classified as families who earn at most R$70 per capita per month while the poor are those

earning between R$ 70.01 and R$140 per capita per month. Whether families become

beneficiaries by automation or by qualification, all beneficiaries are required to be listed in

the Unified Register for Social Programs (MDS, 2006). Qualified beneficiaries receive cash


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transfers per family member up to a maximum of five children only three of which can be

between the ages of 0‐15 while the rest are between 16‐17 years of age. Extremely poor

families receive a minimum of R$ 68 and a maximum of R$ 200 depending on the age

distribution of the children within the family. The minimum transfer is R$ 22 per month for

poor families reaching a maximum of R$ 168 also contingent on the number and age

structure of children within the household. The conditionalities as set out in the legislative

act that created the scheme and enforced through the MDS according to the government

(MDS, 2006) are:

i. Education: school attendance of at least 85% for children and adolescents aged 6 to

15 years and a minimum of 75% for adolescents between 16 and 17 years.

ii. Health: Monitoring the immunization schedule and the growth and development for

children less than 7 years and prenatal monitoring of pregnant women and nursing

mothers aged 14 to 44 years.

iii. Social Assistance: frequency of at least 85% of the workload on services for children

and adolescents up to 15 years at risk of, or withdrawn from child labour

The government claims to have monitoring procedures in place to assess whether families

follow these conditions or not though the receipt of funds by families depends on monthly

qualification for the program (MDS, 2006).

Brazil is not new to heavy social spending but the profile of BFP belies the trend in the total

ratio of its social spending as a percentage of its GDP. In the period immediately after the

BFP consolidations (from 2004 to 2006), the total share of social spending a percentage of

the GDP fell from 14.1% to 12.7%, though figurative spending rose from R$ 249 billion to R$


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293 billion (Hall, 2008, p. 802). As the GDP allocation for social spending dropped, the BFP

scheme received increased funding and became the major recipient CCT program. It

jumped from 26% to 36% of the total social assistance budget between 2003 and 2004

before climaxing at 38% which further represented a 0.03 point increase in total social

spending as a percentage of GDP, i.e. from 0.2% to 0.5% (Lindert, 2005). Funding is provided

through a partnership of the Brazilian government and international development agencies.

The initial budget for the program was R$ 3.4 billion in 2003 which quickly expanded to

more than R$ 8.2 billion as at 2006. The government was also able to secure a funding

instrument from the World Bank (WB) to the tune of US$ 570 million spread between 2004

and the 2009 ending. The interest of the WB may in fact be an important factor to explain

why the funding for BFP has been on the increase while spending for overall social spending

declined. The Bank’s interest may be motivated by the sheer size of beneficiaries under the

scheme. When launched in 2003, BF brought together a total of four million families which

quickly rose to 6.5 million by December of 2004 (Hall 2006, 2008).

There are gains in terms of the program’s reach through a robust system of task sharing

coordinated by MDS. The scheme is implemented over all 5,564 municipalities in the

country through an agreement between municipal governments and the MDS. The

agreement requires that “municipalities maintain a local BFP coordinator (local point‐of‐

contact), register potential beneficiaries [and supervise information consolidation on

conditionalities compliance” (Lindert et. al., 2007, p. 25). A key component of the

agreement which acts to solidify the comprehensive aspect of BFP is that beneficiaries are

granted priority access in the demand and use of complementary social services (schools

and health centres in this instance) to facilitate a horizontal integration. Remarkably, the


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result of the decentralization has been a rapid increase in the number of beneficiaries to

11.6 million families representing more than 44 million Brazilians. It currently stands as the

most elaborate, wide reaching and most funded CCT in the world (Lindert et. al., 2007;

Glewwe & Kassouf, 2008). The World Bank and the Brazilian government presently tout the

successes of the BFP program towards the reduction of poverty and income inequality. Most

of these are measured through the rise in the demand for social services and increase in per

capita income of beneficiary families (Hall, 2008). Similarly, MDS reports that as at 2006,

three years after the launch of BFP, 4.9% of beneficiaries were no longer classified as being

‘poor’ while 31.1% moved from being ‘extremely poor’ to being ‘poor’ (MDS, 2006). A 2006

assessment of the Bolsa Escola component of the scheme to assess school attendance rates

concludes that the school attendance rate increases as at 2005 indicate a potential long run

effect of 0.7% among the target population and 0.3% among the populations as a whole

(Glewwe & Kassouf, 2008). Despite the scope and reach of BFP, there are certain questions

that must be answered particularly relating to how much structural change it has brought to

about 44 million Brazilians since inception.

A close examination of these merits reveals that BFP in particular and CCTs in general leave

more questions about issues of poverty than they tend to answer. First, the program does

little to address structural causes of poverty. An increase in social service demand like the

school attendance rates for instance says little about any possible improvements in quality

of education received. The potency of inter‐service linkages in fighting poverty is only

measurable when beneficiaries’ lives are meaningfully impacted by services received.

Indeed BFP has been bogged down by serious supply‐side impediments (Rocha, 2009).

Second, the horizontal complementarity touted by the program amounts to a half‐baked


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cookie scenario. BFP exists without close consultations with other social security

arrangements under the supervision of the MDS. The Beneficio Prestacao Continuada (BPC)

pension scheme for disabled and over‐65 individuals for example, is operationalized

separate of the BFP but overseen by the same ministry (Glewwe & Kassouf, 2008). This

creates a very serious problem in the selection criteria for beneficiaries because transfers

from the BPC may have been counted as a source of income creating the possibility of

exclusion for disabled families whose per capita receipts lies above the BFP threshold

(Madeiros, Britto, & Soares, 2008). These are families with disabled and retired members

who can’t earn enough and yet may have been excluded from the biggest program in the

world designed to take care of folks in such conditions.

Sustainability also presents an issue for BFP. Its legal status is effectively tied to the political

situation and therefore susceptible to political manoeuvring and positioning. The BFP was

created by President Lula upon assuming office in 2003 and though ratified by an act of

parliament and a presidential decree (MDS, 2006), it does not carry a constitutional status.

It is in fact established as a program within the presidency (Madeiros, Britto, & Soares,

2008). As a result, the ‘extremely poor’ and the ‘poor’ in Brazil are receiving privileged

assistance and not one based on a right to survival. Unlike the constitutionally enshrined

BPC, the BFP is not a ‘rights’ based program and has in fact been subjected to political

manipulation at the local level and has been used as a propaganda scheme at the federal

level (Hall, 2008). Its financial sustainability is also unpredictable and is thus vulnerable to

fiscal adjustments, and economic downturns.

Other questions that remain include, where the increase in service providers is coming from

since government’s social spending as a percentage of GDP has continuously declined since


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BFP began. Are social services being provided by the private sector as part of the ‘mini

economies’ created around the scheme? If this increase can be accounted for through the

rising budget of the BFP, what does that translate into for the rest of the population who

are not on BFP benefits but yet require access to educational, health and home heating

services? What are the provisions being put in place to ensure that for example, a young

school graduate who was a BFP beneficiary is not encouraged to start a family so as to keep

receiving BFP benefits as a way out of joblessness? In other words, are children who go

through the program guaranteed of suitable jobs upon graduation? The answers to these

questions may come in the near future as further studies are carried out on the BFP but can

targeted social programs be reconciled with universal principles of coverage? Universal

programs focus on setting minimum standards that define levels of acceptable living

standards for the entirety of the population. In this regard, social programs are regarded as

entitlements and become rights which every citizen must have access. This principle is

missing in targeting programs and seriously undermines their long‐term sustainability. The

lack of certainty for citizens’ access to social protection as a matter of right exposes

targeting programs to various forms of manipulation.

TARGETING AS A FOUNDATION TOWARDS UNIVERSALISM

Social policy however remains a contested ground for both universal and targeting

programs. Most programs incorporate aspects of both though there are no clear admissions

from either governments or policy theorists. The BFP case discussed above for example

covers all ‘extremely poor’ and ‘poor’ people in Brazil and is backed up by a legislative act,

though the act does not make it an entitlement program. Beneficiaries cannot legally ask for

the cash transfers if denied to them through an act of government policy. On the other


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hand, universal programs which are established as entitlements have been subjected to

targeting strategies as well. For example, the Canadian pension system is listed as universal

but in fact restricts the payment of pension to retired individuals with certain ceilings of

income by taxing their pension entitlements at 100% (Hoddinott, 2007). Similarly, the

Namibian Old Age Pension Scheme which is a constitutionally instructed program has since

been amended to allow for means‐testing. The amendment added that income and assets,

in addition to the age, residency and citizenship requirement, would determine the

entitlement of any individual to the pension scheme.The amendments were inspired by

costs more than an ideological push towards granting poor Namibian retirees special

attention (Devereux, 2001). The close linkages and traces of elements of both approaches in

some programs inform two crucial lessons:

First, there is a need to implement social policies as a means towards achieving universal

coverage of all citizens. Only by focusing on the need to address underlying structural

causes of poverty (in its various manifestations) will social programs achieve the necessary

transformative conditions essential for the success of universal social policies. The focus

towards the implementation of universal social programs as a right for every individual must

begin somewhere. Targeted programs offer such starting points presently. Their existence

will immensely benefit existing universal programs if structurally overlapping areas of social

services are jointly operated. Targeting if done properly also allows for the improvement in

social service quality if the increase in demand is not simply augmented by increased

personnel but further matched with infrastructural provision. This can be done by targeting

resources as a start (Hoddinott, 2007) to improve on existing levels of poverty and

inequality before opening up access to every citizen.


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Secondly, but even more to the heart of the debate is that social programs may not always

follow the ideological presentations in the policies that inspire their creation. The

implementation of such programs, if to be successful will need to conform to certain

conditions which may or may not be important, or indeed be politically expedient for

governments. Therefore, there is a need to assess local conditions including the level of

inequality and poverty that exists, the level of social service access, possible history of the

country with any form of social protection and affordability of entitlement schemes. The

focus of the debate on issue of definition (Barrientos & Holmes, 2007)(Sabates‐Wheeler &

Haddad, 2005) impact on growth (World Bank, 2007) and ultimately cost/sustainability

(Devereux, Marshall, MacAskil, & Pelham, 2005; ILO, 2008) belittle the varying experiences

of countries with different forms of social protection programs. These debates also fail to

address the often occurring phenomenon of both targeted and universal social programs

within the same country. Botswana for instance has a Universal Primary Education which

entitles all its citizens to a minimum of primary level schooling (Lisenda, 2004) but at the

same time operates the vulnerable groups feeding and Destitute Persons programs (Banjo,

2009). Consequentially, social programs should be highly contextual, designed and

implemented according to the dynamics of the vulnerability issues being tackled (Gentilini,

2009).

CONCLUSION

The decline of universal social programs premised on the argument of cost ineffectiveness

has partly brought about the need to pay more attention to poor and vulnerable individuals

as recipients of social assistance. Targeting programs have also been instituted on the claims


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that they are the best way towards reducing socio‐economic inequalities and achieving

poverty alleviation, and perhaps eradication. However, debating the moral underpinnings of

social policy and potential costs must be accompanied by a debate on how best to deliver

qualitative social policies either to a general population or selected beneficiaries. It is

important for social programs to be centrally concerned about the quality of delivered

services and buoyancy of social protection methods to cover the complexity and multiple

linkages of social issues with wider political and economic issues. Targeting seems to be able

to address these linkages and complexity by increasing the demand for social services

through conditioning recipients of government assistance to utilize multiple services at the

same time. The result is like a cocktail of prescriptions which an individual must go through

before qualifying for relief even if his/her socio‐economic condition presents a serious level

of vulnerability. The Brazilian Bolsa Familia presents a good case for such multidimensional

approach but it also falls short of improving the quality of services received by its

beneficiaries though it succeeds in raising the number of users. It therefore, gives some

reason to pause and re‐think the assumption of targeting programs as the ultimate solutions

in solving the poverty question.

The program’s impressive reach – 44 million people to be precise – and its attempt to tackle

poverty from many fronts – cash, healthcare, cooking gas, food access and education – has

no doubt achieved certain successes. Those successes include increase in school attendance

rate, more frequent maternity visit by nursing mothers and perhaps improved markets for

food and gas distribution. The questions that it leaves unanswered however overshadow

those successes and more generally point to the need to reconsider the assault on universal

approaches. Universalism is not free of its problems and in fact (as noted above) may have


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contributed to increases in levels of inequality in certain circumstances but it does offer

dignity and a tolerance level for poverty and inequality situations. Social protection and by

extension policies may therefore benefit from a strategy of implementing targeting

programs as bridging schemes to address existing levels of inequality and poverty incidence

before expanding coverage to the general population. This approach will also benefit from a

strategy of contextualising the conceptualization, design and implementation of social

protection programs in particular and policies in general to ensure adaptability to localised

conditions. The failure of the universalism/targeting debates to capture this nuance reveals

an obsession over idealisation rather than practicality and may undermine the possibility of

finding appropriate solution to specific incidences of poverty and inequality in quite often

distinct localities across developing countries. In this respect, a system of listening to the

poor and intended beneficiaries like those proposed by the participatory approaches must

become essential elements of social policy planning and implementation to build bottom up

solutions and not ideologically dictated ones. If we fail to listen to those we seek to help, we

can be sure of the very high possibility of compounding their worries rather than

dismantling them.


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targeted and universal social protection

Documents

economic risks

economic help

economic riskand cost

decline of poverty levels

socioeconomic inequalities

existing inequalities

social programs

social risks werealtogether