(2006) Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
IDS In Focus is a new series of briefing notes published by the IDS in Brighton, UK. This series is freely available online and provides very concise overviews of emerging policy issues. This first issue focuses on the salient issues surrounding social policy in developing countries.

 
 

Since then, both social protection thinking and practice have taken several new directions. The collection of briefing notes that go together to make this issue of In Focus explore and contribute to some of these.

Looking at Social Protection Through a Livelihoods Lens
Stephen Devereux provides an overview of this In Focus collection.

Reconciling Different Concepts of Risk and Vulnerability
"Efforts to map the full range of interventions is essential to our understanding of donor's approaches to social protection" argue Lawrence Haddad and Rachel Sabates-Wheeler.

Transformative Social Protection
Stephen Devereux and Rachel Sabates-Wheeler illustrate how opinion of social protection has progressed and continues to evolve since emerging from the safety nets agenda of the 1980s and 1990s.

Social Protection for Workers
While globalisation may have limited the ability of governments to finance social welfare programmes, new actors and institutions have emerged write Armando Barrientos and Stephanie Ware Barrientos.

Unconditional Cash Transfers
"There is a growing recognition that institutionalised food aid in Africa has achieved little in terms of addressing underlying problems of food insecurity" says Stephen Devereux.

Child Poverty and Cash Transfers
How effective are cash transfers in helping to tackle child poverty ask Armando Barrientos and Jocelyn DeJong.

Developing a Social Protection Index for Asia
Very little information has been available on the quantative aspects of social protection beyond broad estimates of its costs - until now.
Bob Baulch talks through the Social Protection Index.

Social Assistance in Developing Countries (SADC) Database
"Much can be learnt from paying close attention to the wide range of poverty reduction initiatives in developing countries." Armando Barrientos introduces the SADC database.

source: IDS website