Kangas

Timo Voipio

IDS Bulletin

English

Voipio, Timo

IDS OpenDocs

54
It is easy for me to agree with most of Naila Kabeer’s
comments. In fact, it may be worth emphasising that
albeit a constructive consensus was achieved among
POVNET members on pro-poor growth and social
protection, this does not mean that all our colleagues
in the donor headquarters and country offices would
understand – or agree with – what we have said and
agreed in the POVNET. None of the donor agencies
are internally completely coherent, and each agency
has a more ‘economistic’ and a more ‘social’ face,
depending on who represents the agency.
Kabeer rightly refers to the OECD as a ‘rich country
club’. However, in this case, she is wrong in assuming
that the intention of the POVNET members is to
negotiate the ultimate ‘truths’, ‘wisdoms’ and
‘recipes’ about social protection first among the
donor members, and only then to disseminate them
to developing country partners as glossy and
authoritative OECD Guidelines.
In the work-plans of the POVNET Task Team on
Social Protection, we have strongly emphasised the
need to engage in dialogues and consultations with
professionals of social protection in the ‘Global
South’, including the national experts of developing
countries as well as our colleagues in the donor
embassies and country offices, who work closer to
the people whose life realities we seek to influence.
Professional networking nowadays takes place
increasingly through e-mail, internet and video- and
tele-conferencing. In these processes, the real
physical distances lose their relevance, as long as we
at least every now and then get an opportunity to
meet face-to-face, too.
Kabeer assumes that donor agencies may be afraid
of the high costs of social protection schemes. This
is, indeed, a common fear, albeit misplaced in most
cases, especially in those situations where regular,
predictable social protection (e.g. in the form of
universal social pensions or child grants) delivered by
permanent national and local government structures
can replace enormously expensive ‘emergency’ or
‘humanitarian’ assistance’ or food aid operations
managed by donor agencies or developing country
governments, often too late and too little, but
always with huge transaction costs, which can be
substantially lowered, e.g. by transferring cash instead
of food aid imported from overseas.
Kabeer’s analysis of the differences between the
World Bank’s thinking on social risk management
and the Nordic idea of comprehensive social policy is
sharp and accurate. Ultimately, the difference is
ideological: in the Nordic thinking, social protection
is not only an essential pillar of a sustainable (pro-
poor) growth strategy – as for the World Bank, and
for the POVNET Guidelines on Pro-Poor Growth –
but it is also a human right, as per Article 25 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this sense,
the Nordic thinking is much closer to the ILO than to
the World Bank.
Kabeer rightly suggests that the deepening of insurance
markets through public-private micro-insurance and re-
insurance arrangements may be centrally important
in enabling poor people to engage in higher
profit/productivity livelihood activities and reducing
their reliance on debilitating crisis coping strategies.
I would emphasise that both public and private as
well as both micro- and macro-institutions may be
needed in social protection. As regards insurance,
public schemes often have the natural advantage that
the populations among whom risks are pooled are
larger, and therefore statistically more feasible.
Social Protection for Poverty
Reduction: A Reply to Kabeer
Timo Voipio
IDS Bulletin Volume 38  Number 3  May 2007  © Institute of Development Studies
IDS Bulletin Volume 38  Number 3  May 2007 55
Most of the work of the POVNET Task Team on
Social Protection focused on the management of
social risks. However, the need for enterprise/business
risk management among the micro- and small
enterprises of poor people is large, too. For example,
rainfall insurance has turned out to be a manageable
form of insurance against harvest losses.
Health-related risks are ‘hybrids’ in the sense that for
many poor families ill health is not only a social risk
but also an enterprise/business risk; physical labour is
often the most important factor of production that
poor people depend on. ill health, therefore, is for
many poor families, the most serious impoverishing
factor. For this reason, health insurance should be
considered not only a ‘social’ risk management
instrument but a ‘pro-growth’ ‘business risk’
management instrument too.
The final conclusion and recommendation by Kabeer
is very welcome. The discussions in the Task Team
have, indeed, increasingly turned towards the need
to identify who might be the various ‘permanent
champions’ of social protection, inclusion, equity and
empowerment in developing countries.
A change agenda driven by donor projects and
representatives alone cannot be sustainable, unless
the national ministries and authorities responsible for
social protection, employment and empowerment –
plus their social partners, related research institutes
and media – and broader social movements have the
will and skill to articulate the needs for, and human
rights to social protection in, national policy
dialogues and budget struggles, and to bargain for
the effective and equitable implementation of these
rights as a national priority.
Such power struggles are not easy – but they are
necessary: Historical evidence from ‘late
industrialisers’ shows (Kangas and Palme 2005) that
the future prospects are much brighter for those
nations that start to develop their social protection
systems early – before they have become rich –
than for those who delay and neglect the design,
piloting and mainstreaming of the instruments of
social protection, inclusion, and empowerment,
hoping to become first rich and invest in social
policy only thereafter.
Reference
Kangas, O. and Palme, J. (2005) Social Policy and
Economic Development in the Nordic Countries,
Basingstoke: United Nations Research Institute for
Social Development (UNRISD) and Palgrave
Macmillan


Social Protection for Poverty Reduction: A Reply to Kabeer

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Social Protection for Poverty Reduction: A Reply to Kabeer

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