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Integrated Social Protection Systems: Enhancing Equity for Children

UNICEF’s Social Protection Strategic Framework

• Social protection strengthens resilience and helps achieve greater equity

• UNICEF supports Progressive Realization of Universal Coverage

• Social protection can be affordable and sustainably financed

• UNICEF promotes integrated social protection systems

• Social, as well as economic, vulnerabilities need to be addressed by social protection

• Starting point for a collaborative agenda on joint learning and action

Key Messages

• Progressive realization of universal coverage

• National systems and leadership

• Inclusive social protection

Three Key Principles

Social protection components and examples

Cash transfers (including pensions, child benefits, poverty-targeted, seasonal)Food transfersNutritional supplementation; Provision of ARVsPublic works

Birth registrationUser fee abolitionHealth insuranceExemptions, vouchers, subsidiesSpecialized services to ensure equitable access for all

Family support servicesHome-based careAccessible Childcare services

Minimum and equal pay legislationEmployment guarantee schemesMaternity and paternity leaveRemoval of discriminatory legislation or policies affecting service provision/access or employment

Social Transfers

Programs to access

services

Support and care

Legislation

Multi-sector Approach

Children survive, develop and thrive

Social Inclusion Equitable access to services

Equitable access to goods/resources

Behavior patterns/change

Supply of services

Enabling factors

Social Protection

Direct impact: Contributes to removing barriers to access

Indirect impact: Fosters improvements in supply and quality of services;

contributes behavior change

Identifies and maximizes linkages between SP and sectors - child protection, HIV/AIDS, ECD, education, health & nutrition, WASH, etc.

• Financing (costing, financing and affordability)• Politics of Social Protection: the elephant in

MENA – fuel subsidies• Sequencing and Prioritization: the lens of

multiple, overlapping deprivations• Institutional Capacity: the lesson from Iran

Key Policy Issues & Challenges

SP reform, financing and targeting

• How to scale up in fiscally constrained environments?– Social protection financing– Sequencing and prioritization

Revenues are expected to decline, with financing tightening in some countries

Illustration of Options for Expanding Fiscal Space and Government Fiscal Operations(in percent of GDP, 2011 proj.)

Jordan YemenTotal revenues and grants 23.3 26.8

Tax revenues 22.1 25.6 Increasing tax revenues Grants (ODA) 1.2 1.2 Increased aid and transfers

Total expenditures 28.8 32.4 Re-allocating public expendituresNext period Current expenditure 23.6 25.7

Wage 13.0 8.9Subsidies and transfer 6.6 11.2Interest payments 0.2 0.2

Capital expenditure 4.9 6.7

Fiscal deficit -5.5 -5.6 A more accommodating macro framework

Financing -5.5 5.6Fiscal reserves Drawing down reservesNet borrowing Borrowing or restructuring debt

Net domestic borrowingCentral bank financing

Net foreign borrowingCommercialOfficial (ODA)

Financing gap 0 0

Military expenditure (2009) in selected countries

Government External Bonds(net flows, in billions of current US$)

How UNICEF can help

• Technical assistance to government in strengthening or reform of current systems to enhance impact on vulnerable children and their families – e.g. addressing inclusion and exclusion errors in coverage;

• Support to the integration of social protection with other support and protective services (social workers, community services), to reach the excluded children and families

• Technical advice on improving cost-effectiveness and efficiency of interventions

• Help strengthen monitoring and evaluation (M&E) mechanisms and redress procedures;

• Promoting exchange of experiences with other countries in similar settings as well as South-South learning.

UNICEF Social Protection Work an overview

Show and Tell on Social Protection Bonn, 2011

www.unicef.org/socialprotection/framework/