Expanding and Improving Social Safety Nets Through Digitalization

Expanding and Improving Social Safety Nets Through Digitalization PDF Author: Nicolo Bird
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Social safety nets (SSNs) are focal policies that support poor and vulnerable households, most prominently through cash transfers. However, strong discrepancies persist across countries in terms of spending, coverage, and targeting of SSNs, with larger gaps often found in low-income countries. Digital technologies can prove vital in supporting a rapid expansion of SSNs around the world. Governments need to do three things for this: identify, verify, and pay. This note explains how countries can make considerable improvements across these three dimensions despite differences in capacity levels. It examines six case studies of countries―Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Pakistan, Togo, and Türkiye―that used and adapted digital technologies in different ways due, in large part, to variations in digital SSN infrastructures in place before the onset of COVID-19. These case studies illustrate how (1) innovative digital technologies can help overcome lack of government capacity to implement SSNs, even in countries with a lack of digital infrastructure or capacity, and (2) countries with stronger digital infrastructure or investments in SSNs before COVID-19 were able to complement existing policies to reach more people and to provide stronger responses than countries without preexisting SSN frameworks.

Adaptive Social Protection

Adaptive Social Protection PDF Author: Thomas Bowen
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464815755
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to the impacts of large, covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflict, and forced displacement. Through the provision of transfers and services directly to these households, ASP supports their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to the shocks they face—before, during, and after these shocks occur. Over the long term, by supporting these three capacities, ASP can provide a pathway to a more resilient state for households that may otherwise lack the resources to move out of chronically vulnerable situations. Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks outlines an organizing framework for the design and implementation of ASP, providing insights into the ways in which social protection systems can be made more capable of building household resilience. By way of its four building blocks—programs, information, finance, and institutional arrangements and partnerships—the framework highlights both the elements of existing social protection systems that are the cornerstones for building household resilience, as well as the additional investments that are central to enhancing their ability to generate these outcomes. In this report, the ASP framework and its building blocks have been elaborated primarily in relation to natural disasters and associated climate change. Nevertheless, many of the priorities identified within each building block are also pertinent to the design and implementation of ASP across other types of shocks, providing a foundation for a structured approach to the advancement of this rapidly evolving and complex agenda.

Measuring the Digital Transformation A Roadmap for the Future

Measuring the Digital Transformation A Roadmap for the Future PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264311998
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Measuring the Digital Transformation: A Roadmap for the Future provides new insights into the state of the digital transformation by mapping indicators across a range of areas – from education and innovation, to trade and economic and social outcomes – against current digital policy issues, as presented in Going Digital: Shaping Policies, Improving Lives.

Inclusive GovTech: Enhancing Efficiency and Equity Through Public Service Digitalization

Inclusive GovTech: Enhancing Efficiency and Equity Through Public Service Digitalization PDF Author: Manabu Nose
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description
How could the GovTech improve budget processes and execution efficiency? Could the GovTech strengthen redistributive function of public expenditure? Based on an event-study method, this paper finds that the introduction of digital budget payments and e-procurement could significantly enhance budget transparency and help expand the coverage of social assistance to reach the most vulnerable population. Exploiting staggered adoption of digital budget payments, a synthetic control regression identifies meaningful increase in pre-tax income shares among the bottom 50th percentile and female workers, especially for emerging market and developing countries, with effects materializing gradually over 10-year period. The paper delves into the potential mechanism driving these equity benefits, highlighting the reduction in business informality as a primary channel. However, the paper emphasizes that the mere adoption of GovTech strategies or digital technologies is insufficient to unlock its full potential. The outcomes are intricately linked to supporting policies, regulations, organizational and system integration, and robust digital connectivity. The paper underscores that inter-agency coordination facilitated by a dedicated GovTech institution emerges as a critical factor for reaping both efficiency and equity gains from GovTech initiatives.

Transforming Public Finance Through GovTech

Transforming Public Finance Through GovTech PDF Author: David Amaglobeli
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description
Digital divide across countries and within countries continues to persist and even increased when the quality of internet connection is considered. The note shows that many governments have not been able to harness the full potential of digitalization. Governments could play important role to facilitate digital adoption by intervening both on supply (investing in infrastructure) and demand side (increase internet affordability). The note also documents significant dividends from digital adoption for revenue collection and spending efficiency, and for outcomes in education, health and social safety nets. The note also emphasizes that digitalization is not a substitute for good governance and that comprehensive reform plans embedded in National Digital Strategies (NDS) combined with legal and institutional reforms are needed to ensure that governments can reap full benefits from digitalization and manage the risks appropriately.

World Development Report 2019

World Development Report 2019 PDF Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464813566
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Work is constantly reshaped by technological progress. New ways of production are adopted, markets expand, and societies evolve. But some changes provoke more attention than others, in part due to the vast uncertainty involved in making predictions about the future. The 2019 World Development Report will study how the nature of work is changing as a result of advances in technology today. Technological progress disrupts existing systems. A new social contract is needed to smooth the transition and guard against rising inequality. Significant investments in human capital throughout a person’s lifecycle are vital to this effort. If workers are to stay competitive against machines they need to train or retool existing skills. A social protection system that includes a minimum basic level of protection for workers and citizens can complement new forms of employment. Improved private sector policies to encourage startup activity and competition can help countries compete in the digital age. Governments also need to ensure that firms pay their fair share of taxes, in part to fund this new social contract. The 2019 World Development Report presents an analysis of these issues based upon the available evidence.

Macroeconomic Developments and Prospects For Low-Income Countries—2024

Macroeconomic Developments and Prospects For Low-Income Countries—2024 PDF Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
The outlook for Low-Income Countries (LICs) is gradually improving, but they face persistent macroeconomic vulnerabilities, including liquidity challenges due to high debt service. There is significant heterogeneity among LICs: the poorest and most fragile countries have faced deep scarring from the pandemic, while those with diversified economies and Frontier Markets are faring better. Achieving inclusive growth and building resilience are essential for LICs to converge with more advanced economies and meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Building resilience will also be critical in the context of a more shock-prone world. This requires both decisive domestic actions, including expanding and better targeting Social Safety Nets (SSNs), and substantial external support, including adequate financing, policy advice, capacity development and, where needed, debt relief. The Fund is further stepping up its support through targeted policy advice, capacity building, and financing.

World Development Report 2016

World Development Report 2016 PDF Author: World Bank Group
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464806721
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Digital technologies are spreading rapidly, but digital dividends--the broader benefits of faster growth, more jobs, and better services--are not. If more than 40 percent of adults in East Africa pay their utility bills using a mobile phone, why can’t others around the world do the same? If 8 million entrepreneurs in China--one third of them women--can use an e-commerce platform to export goods to 120 countries, why can’t entrepreneurs elsewhere achieve the same global reach? And if India can provide unique digital identification to 1 billion people in five years, and thereby reduce corruption by billions of dollars, why can’t other countries replicate its success? Indeed, what’s holding back countries from realizing the profound and transformational effects that digital technologies are supposed to deliver? Two main reasons. First, nearly 60 percent of the world’s population are still offline and can’t participate in the digital economy in any meaningful way. Second, and more important, the benefits of digital technologies can be offset by growing risks. Startups can disrupt incumbents, but not when vested interests and regulatory uncertainty obstruct competition and the entry of new firms. Employment opportunities may be greater, but not when the labor market is polarized. The internet can be a platform for universal empowerment, but not when it becomes a tool for state control and elite capture. The World Development Report 2016 shows that while the digital revolution has forged ahead, its 'analog complements'--the regulations that promote entry and competition, the skills that enable workers to access and then leverage the new economy, and the institutions that are accountable to citizens--have not kept pace. And when these analog complements to digital investments are absent, the development impact can be disappointing. What, then, should countries do? They should formulate digital development strategies that are much broader than current information and communication technology (ICT) strategies. They should create a policy and institutional environment for technology that fosters the greatest benefits. In short, they need to build a strong analog foundation to deliver digital dividends to everyone, everywhere.

India Transformed

India Transformed PDF Author: Rakesh Mohan
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815736622
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
In this commemorative volume, India's top business leaders and economic luminaries come together to provide a balanced picture of the consequences of the country’s economic reforms, which were initiated in 1991. What were the reforms? What were they intended for? How have they affected the overall functioning of the economy? With contributions from Mukesh Ambani, Narayana Murthy, Sunil Mittal, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Shivshankar Menon, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, T.N. Ninan, Sanjaya Baru, Naushad Forbes, Omkar Goswami and R. Gopalakrishnan, India Transformed delves deep into the life of an economically liberalized India through the eyes of the people who helped transform it.

Semiannual Report to the President and to the Congress

Semiannual Report to the President and to the Congress PDF Author: National Advisory Council on International Monetary and Financial Policies (U.S.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : International economic relations
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description