Financing social protection

The work on financing social protection focuses on three areas: the long-term financing of social protection, the reform of civil service pension schemes in developing countries and the financing of public works programmes. These topics were chosen because of their relevance for partners countries, because they represent gaps in the existing literature around social protection and because of their wide applicability to other developing countries.

The report Social Protection in East Africa: Harnessing the Future on the long-term financing of social protection focuses on six countries in East Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The report that was published in April 2017, examines long-term demographic, economic and environmental trends over the next 50 years – the timeframe envisaged by the African Union’s Agenda 2063 in order to show how key socio-economic variables such as the size and age structure of the population, the level of urbanisation, income poverty and the structure of the economy and the labour market are likely to evolve. It also identifies the likely impact of climate change in the six countries. While it is not possible to predict precisely how the six countries will develop over the coming decades, the report demonstrates clearly these trends will interact and reinforce each other.

Based on these projections, the report anticipates how demand for social protection is likely to change over the next 50 years and identifies which policy directions will be best suited to addressing the complex and far-reaching challenges confronting the six countries. In turn, these policy responses all have significant financial implications which need to inform long-term social protection strategies being developed by the sample countries.

The work on the financing of public works schemes is being carried out in collaboration with the International Labour Organization. The underlying rationale for the study is that the financing arrangements (and related institutional infrastructure) of public works programmes are often misaligned with the objectives of these programmes, which in turn undermines programme performance. The paper on civil service pension arrangements reflects the fact that such schemes are often the largest and best-developed social insurance schemes in emerging economies.

For more information:

Social Protection in East Africa Harnessing the Future
Full report, (OECD, April 2017) 

Social protection in East Africa: harnessing the future (pdf 49,7 kB) 
by Alexander Pick, EU-SPS Programme (IPC-IG, September 2017)

Workers in the informal sector and contributory social insurance schemes—the case of Tanzania (pdf 49,9 kB)
by Flora Myamba (IPC-IG, September 2017)