Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets

Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets PDF Author: Stefan Dercon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Poor rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial risks, which they handle with risk-management and risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance through savings and informal insurance mechanisms. Despite these mechanisms, however, vulnerability to poverty linked to risk remains high. This article reviews the literature on poor households' use of risk-management and risk-coping strategies. It identifies the constraints on their effectiveness and discusses policy options. It shows that risk and lumpiness limit the opportunities to use assets as insurance, that entry constraints limit the usefulness of income diversification, and that informal risk-sharing provides only limited protection, leaving some of the poor exposed to very severe negative shocks. Public safety nets are likely to be beneficial, but their impact is sometimes limited, and they may have negative externalities on households that are not covered. Collecting more information on households' vulnerability to poverty - through both quantitative and qualitative methods - could help inform policy.

Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets

Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets PDF Author: Stefan Dercon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Poor rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial risks, which they handle with risk-management and risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance through savings and informal insurance mechanisms. Despite these mechanisms, however, vulnerability to poverty linked to risk remains high. This article reviews the literature on poor households' use of risk-management and risk-coping strategies. It identifies the constraints on their effectiveness and discusses policy options. It shows that risk and lumpiness limit the opportunities to use assets as insurance, that entry constraints limit the usefulness of income diversification, and that informal risk-sharing provides only limited protection, leaving some of the poor exposed to very severe negative shocks. Public safety nets are likely to be beneficial, but their impact is sometimes limited, and they may have negative externalities on households that are not covered. Collecting more information on households' vulnerability to poverty - through both quantitative and qualitative methods - could help inform policy.

Realizing the Full Potential of Social Safety Nets in Africa

Realizing the Full Potential of Social Safety Nets in Africa PDF Author: Kathleen Beegle
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464811660
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Poverty remains a pervasive and complex phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the agenda in recent years to tackle poverty in Africa has been the launching of social safety nets programs. All countries have now deployed safety net interventions as part of their core development programs. The number of programs has skyrocketed since the mid-2000s though many programs remain limited in size. This shift in social policy reflects the progressive evolution in the understanding of the role that social safety nets can play in the fight against poverty and vulnerability, and more generally in the human capital and growth agenda. Evidence on their impacts on equity, resilience, and opportunity is growing, and makes a foundational case for investments in safety nets as a major component of national development plans. For this potential to be realized, however, safety net programs need to be significantly scaled-up. Such scaling up will involve a series of technical considerations to identify the parameters, tools, and processes that can deliver maximum benefits to the poor and vulnerable. However, in addition to technical considerations, and at least as importantly, this report argues that a series of decisive shifts need to occur in three other critical spheres: political, institutional, and fiscal. First, the political processes that shape the extent and nature of social policy need to be recognized, by stimulating political appetite for safety nets, choosing politically smart parameters, and harnessing the political impacts of safety nets to promote their sustainability. Second, the anchoring of safety net programs in institutional arrangements †“ related to the overarching policy framework for safety nets, the functions of policy and coordination, as well as program management and implementation †“ is particularly important as programs expand and are increasingly implemented through national channels. And third, in most countries, the level and predictability of resources devoted to the sector needs to increase for safety nets to reach the desired scale, through increased efficiency, increased volumes and new sources of financing, and greater ability to effectively respond to shocks. This report highlights the implications which political, institutional, and fiscal aspects have for the choice and design of programs. Fundamentally, it argues that these considerations are critical to ensure the successful scaling-up of social safety nets in Africa, and that ignoring them could lead to technically-sound, but practically impossible, choices and designs.

Beyond the Resources of Poverty

Beyond the Resources of Poverty PDF Author: Sebnem Eroglu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317174488
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
This groundbreaking volume researches the lives of gecekondu settlers in the capital city of Turkey in order to understand how households cope with poverty and why some households are more successful than others in reducing their deprivation. It takes a critical stance towards existing conceptions such as household survival, livelihood and coping strategy and develops an alternative model based on four types of household response to poverty: income generation, income allocation, consumption and investment. In explaining household responses and their outcomes for poverty, the book demonstrates the role of different resources beyond income including social, economic and cultural capital. It emphasises broader structural factors such as labour market processes and state policies which influence the availability and/or benefit delivery capacity of household resources, and thereby moves beyond the dominant view which overemphasises the resilience of the poor. Gender divisions within the household are also examined. The book adopts an innovative method for measuring poverty. The new method combines 'objective' and subjective dimensions of deprivation to develop a unique way of addressing two central questions: what are those standards of living whose absence indicates deprivation, and how can the value of each standard of living be determined?

Food Security

Food Security PDF Author: Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199236550
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
"Result of a joint project meeting between UNU-WIDER and the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), with research contributions from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Climate Change and Food Security

Climate Change and Food Security PDF Author: David B. Lobell
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048129524
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Roughly a billion people around the world continue to live in state of chronic hunger and food insecurity. Unfortunately, efforts to improve their livelihoods must now unfold in the context of a rapidly changing climate, in which warming temperatures and changing rainfall regimes could threaten the basic productivity of the agricultural systems on which most of the world’s poor directly depend. But whether climate change represents a minor impediment or an existential threat to development is an area of substantial controversy, with different conclusions wrought from different methodologies and based on different data. This book aims to resolve some of the controversy by exploring and comparing the different methodologies and data that scientists use to understand climate’s effects on food security. In explains the nature of the climate threat, the ways in which crops and farmers might respond, and the potential role for public and private investment to help agriculture adapt to a warmer world. This broader understanding should prove useful to both scientists charged with quantifying climate threats, and policy-makers responsible for crucial decisions about how to respond. The book is especially suitable as a companion to an interdisciplinary undergraduate or graduate level class.

Social Assistance in Developing Countries

Social Assistance in Developing Countries PDF Author: Armando Barrientos
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107039029
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
This book provides the first comprehensive account of the global growth of social assistance transfers in developing countries. It explains the emergence of programmes such as Brazil's Bolsa Família, India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and South Africa's Child Support Grant, and examines their potential to address global poverty.

Safety Net Programs and Poverty Reduction

Safety Net Programs and Poverty Reduction PDF Author: K. Subbarao
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The need for social safety nets has become a key component of poverty reduction strategies. Over the past three decades several developing countries have launched a variety of programs, including cash transfers, subsidies in-kind, public works, and income-generation programs. However, there is little guidance on appropriate program design, and few studies have synthesized the lessons from widely differing country experiences. This report fills that gap. It reviews the conceptual issues in the choice of programs, synthesizes cross-country experience, and analyzes how country- and region-specific constraints can explain why different approaches are successful in different countries.

Risk, Shocks, and Human Development

Risk, Shocks, and Human Development PDF Author: R. Fuentes-Nieva
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230274129
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Sudden negative events are part of life, but some are more disastrous than others. This book analyzes the consequences of sudden negative shocks in the short and long term well being of people and how the policies implemented before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the event could help prevent these long lasting effects.

The world's most deprived: Characteristics and causes of extreme poverty and hunger

The world's most deprived: Characteristics and causes of extreme poverty and hunger PDF Author: Ahmed, Akhter U.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 0896297705
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description


Full and Productive Employment in Developing Economies

Full and Productive Employment in Developing Economies PDF Author: Rizwanul Islam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351256343
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals include a specific target for full and productive employment. However, what constitutes full employment in developing countries is not yet clearly understood. And likewise, there is no clear direction for developing strategies and policies to address this challenge. Drawing on the author’s deep knowledge of employment and inclusive development, this book presents a broad framework which could enable us to pursue the challenging goal of full, productive employment in developing countries. It revisits the conceptual foundations of full employment and carefully examines the issue of suitable indicators for monitoring progress. It also examines the challenges created by globalized production chains and labour market fluctuations caused by economic crises. This book throws light on a major lacuna in development thinking on how the challenge of creating productive employment for all in developing countries needs to be addressed. It provides a solution by re-examining relevant theories and empirical evidence, and by bringing out their implications for development strategies and policies. Finally, the focus falls on the effective implementation of employment strategies and policies. This authoritative work will appeal to a diverse readership of academic researchers, think-tanks, international organizations, and development partners.