TRANSFORMATIVE SOCIAL PROTECTION and RIGHTS FOR CHILDEN Rachel Sabates

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TRANSFORMATIVE SOCIAL PROTECTION and RIGHTS FOR
CHILDENRachel SabatesWheeler IDS Sussex
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Critique of Mainstream Approach

• rooted in a safety nets approach it focuses
  on economic shocks rather than social
  vulnerability.
• reflects a limited conceptualisation of
  vulnerability
• concerns itself mainly with public (state, donor
  or NGO) and marketbased social protection
  strategies
• In practice, SRM encourages only a limited role
  for government in social protection provision
• analysis and policies do not recognise power and
  rights

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A new definition of social protection

• Social protection describes all initiatives,
  both public and private, that
• provide income or consumption transfers to the
  poor
• protect the vulnerable against livelihood risks
  and
• 3) enhance the social status and rights of the
  excluded and marginalised.

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Multiple functions of social protection

• Protection social assistance (food aid)
  social services (orphanages)
• Prevention social insurance (pensions,
  unemployment benefits)
• Promotion livelihood enhancing transfers
  (microfinance)
• Transformation social empowerment
  (anti-stigma campaigns)

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A Conceptual Framework for Social Protection
Promotive Economic opportunities
Transformative Transformative action
Springboards
Preventive Insurance and diversification
mechanisms
Safety nets
Protective Social assistance and coping strategies
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Overlapping functions of social protection
interventions

• School feeding is
• protective (transfers food to hungry
  children), and
• promotive (encourages investment in
  education)
• Transformative (targeted to poor and vulnerable)
• Anti-discrimination campaigns are both
• transformative (addresses social risk, social
  exclusion, discrimination and violation of
  rights), and
• promotive (has economic/growth spin-offs)

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• Who needs social protection?
• Economically at risk(coffee farmers, IDPs)
• Chronically poor(PWD, PLWA, elderly)
• Socially vulnerable(PWD, PLWA, street kids,
  minority tribes castes).

• What protection do they need?
• Social assistance(food aid, social pension)
• Social insurance(unemployment benefit)
• Social services(orphanages)
• Transformative action(regulation, sensitisation)

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Social protection instruments for social
transformation

• Legislation on economic, social and cultural
  rights
• Anticorruption measures
• Sensitisation / antidiscrimination
  campaigns(HIV/AIDS Antistigma campaign in
  Uganda)
• Minimum wage legislation
• Workers rights (e.g. maternity leave)
• Psychosocial counselling (for trauma)
• Conflict resolution.

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Conclusion Why do we need transformative
social protection?

• Transformative social protection is affordable
  not just cash transfers to vulnerable groups
  (22 million Ugandans, 150,000 tax-payers)
• Transformative social protection is sustainable
  addresses underlying causes, not just triggers
• Transformative social protection tackles social
  exclusion as well as economic vulnerability
• Safety nets can create dependency but social
  protection promotes empowerment and rights.

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• Transformative Social Protection
• IDS Working Paper 232
• www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/wp/wp232